A Difficult Farewell to an Amazing Colleague and Friend

Like many artists I know, I patch together a living doing a lot of different gigs. One of my longest-standing gigs is directing the music program for the good people at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin.

For people in the conducting/directing trade, church gigs are often viewed as necessary stops on the path to something far more prestigious and grandiose. While I may have viewed the job through this variety of lens when I was hired in my 20’s, I gradually came to see it as a sound laboratory and a safe space for almost any type of rep.

Bach Cantatas and other chamber orch/choral things? Sure, but placed alongside more challenging contemporary rep like the Schnittke Requiem, Stravinsky Mass, and new outsider-art pieces penned by myself and my composer friends. Quiet piano preludes? Sure, but also prepared piano works by Cage. Quiet acoustic instruments? Sure, but also songs by Guided by Voices, the Ramones, Sly & the Family Stone, and so on.

Who allowed me to get away with all this? Well, in the early years, it may be said that my eclectic tastes were embraced by some and merely (barely?) tolerated by others. Gradually most of the people came around, and so much of this can be traced back to when they hired Meg Barnhouse to head up the organization.

Through Meg’s own eclectic tastes and concept of the institution serving as an “arts church,” I was given free-reign to program much of the same sorts of things that I perform on a regular basis in my other gigs, even hiring many of my local and touring friends to share their music. Meg felt very strongly that music should be a very important part of the institution, and that musicians should be financially compensated in a generous and responsible manner.

Being a wonderful musician in her own right, getting to work with Meg these past 11 years has been such a wonderful gift (so much so that I dedicated my most recent work, Peace is Every Step, to her). I was heartbroken when she announced in January that she has cancer and that she would need to step away from her position, though this made me all the more determined to give her a lovingly musical send-off.

After months of poignant (and often teary) services, we held our final service with her this morning. I feel drained and sad, but also thankful for every moment we had working together the past decade. As Meg has often sung to us, all will be well, but it’s a little hard to sense that at this moment. It is going to be very emotionally difficult moving forward, but I will do so in honor of all that we have built together.