Welcome to Notes!Rebekah
lauded in Martha's Vineyard Press! REBEKAH PERFORMS SONGS WITH A MYSTIC
INCLINATION A singer with a sonorous voice mesmerized her Union Chapel audience on Wednesday night with hauntingly beautiful original songs and antiphons by the Medieval mystic, St. Hildegard von Bingen, in the first of two concerts on the Island. Rebekah's voice was so compelling that people from the street were drawn into the concert throughout the performance. A group of girls shyly stood at the back at first and then moved up to the front row. Dressed in a strapless grey satin dress with roses on it, Rebekah was poised and radiant throughout the evening. She said, "I have long felt that divinity was part of being human and that there had to be some greater meaning to it all than my petty concerns, and that led me to write devotional music. "One thing I know is that we are all sacred human beings. It is our birthright. My music is a great way to remind myself of a higher path and that I'm here for a purpose much greater than shopping at K-mart." She said her song The Path of Gold is "about the highest path I seek, and arose out of a spiritual passage I had with a meditation group." As she sang The Path of Gold, her voice cascading and beautiful, she seemed to be almost on another spiritual level as she held her arms reaching out to the audience, which was clearly moved by the beauty of Rebekah and her velvet voice. After an antiphon by Hildegard von Bingen, the audience applauded vigorously, but Rebekah asked people not to clap. "The nature of this music is so centering and quiet," she said, "that everyone should just relax until the end." O Dulcis Chant was from an oratorio about the parallel between heaven and hell, said Rebekah, "and angels and virtue and the devil over one poor soul. And I get to be that soul, and this is about how sweet divinity is and how beautiful life is." Rebekah is on the island with her son, Daniel, who is six and a half. She has been coming to the Island for 32 years every summer to Chilmark. "Because my parents were in the foreign service, we lived all over the place. The Vineyard is the one place in the world I've come back to on a regular basis, and I consider it my home more than anywhere else." Rebekah began singing at the age of 13. She earned a vocal performance and a liberal arts degree from Oberlin College and performed in Germany in oratorios and recitals. In the early 1990s she started singing some opera roles; she performed in Duessledorf, Bonn, Krefeld, and Cologne with the travelling opera company, Rheinische Panto-Mini Opera. Explaining the song O Heart of Mine, Rebekah said, "This was written in the midst of a heartbreak. I vowed that I wasn't going to write love songs, but I was feeling that I had to write something to myself. The details of the heartbreak are not important, but my heart was closed although I had such a desire to give everything, yet my heart and soul knew this wasn't a good idea. This song is about respecting the yeses and the no's of the heart. It opens in its own time." Her voice was so moving that it drew great applause from the audience. The three girls in the front row climbed out of their seats to applaud. Commenting on another song, Coming Home To You, Rebekah said, "This is another attempt at writing a love song and is written to myself because [I needed a love song] and my friend, Martha MacIntire Goldstein, plays the English Horn." As she sang the words "Sailing Home with Thee, Love is all I see," the audience was completely enraptured by her sparkling voice. Her last piece was Ave Generosa, "Which is the music of the Virgin Mary's coming to earth, and her abundance and generosity," said Rebekah. Her voice again filled the Union Chapel with its depth and richness. Rebekah's second concert will be on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Chilmark Community Church. Admission is a free will offering to benefit the church. CDs of her work are available at the concert and through her web site: www.pathofgold.com. Check back for performance information and more notes... |
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