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So Bravely Dream-- from The Free Press, Rockland, Maine, 28 September 1995
SO BRAVELY DREAM
Camden musician Jan Harmon's spirit lives on in a new recording by the Quasimodal Chorus
![[pic: Jan]](../images/sobrav01.jpg) Jan Harmon at work composing a song |
`Til you come home, the salt wind blows up from the bay, and brings your dreaming to me. Then, bare as a bone, you'll go and touch the starry sky. And with the light returning you'll silent wake from dreams that seem so far away on such an April morning.
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There couldn't be a group more appropriate to honor Jan Harmon, who died of leukemia in 1993 at age 53; than the Quasimodal Chorus, an ensemble which she was largely responsible for bringing together nearly 10 years ago. Harmon, a poet, artist and prolific composer, had a special talent for writing choral music, but for a long time had no chorus to try it out on. Then soon after moving to Camden in about 1985 from California where her soft-sculpture creations were widely exhibited at museums and galleries she met a group of musicians who gathered frequently at the Camden Harbour Inn and many of whom were working with Gordon Bok on a series of recordings called the "February Tapes." When Harmon was invited in 1987 to perform at the Rockport Folk Festival, she decided to ask this group to join her; it was then that the Quasimodal Chorus was born. Each week the dozen or so singers met at Jan's house to rehearse, warmed b her hearty soups and homemade bread ("she made the best soup in the whole world," remembers one chorus member), and it was her own compositions they sang. "The music just kept coming out of her," says Brown. "Every week we would come and there would be something new for us to sing." And, adds Penelope Ray, "Jan could hear all the different choral parts as the music went through her head -- she was really amazing. She had a gift for music, one which she shared happily with others."
Not only did Harmon write a rich quantity of words and music, she also covered a wide variety of subjects in her lyrics and worked with many different musical styles. In addition to choral music, she liked to compose rounds ballads, musicals and instrumental pieces; in 1988 she wrote and directed the chorus in A Fire Called Sun, an opera inspired by a Czechoslovakian folktale. "It is difficult to categorize Jan's music," says Brown. "It is contemporary and easy to listen to; some of the harmonies are jazzy, but you wouldn't call her music jazz. It is definitely unique."
While many of Harmon's songs are light and humorous -- "Ma Bell Boogie," which recounts her experience dealing with AT&T when she first moved to Camden and opened a bed and breakfast, is a great example -- others tell stories of people she has known or of her own rich life experiences. Some songs will make you laugh; others, such as "Good Wish," one of two pieces recorded at the 1987 Folk Festival and sung by Jan herself on So Bravely Dream, may move, you to tears; but all of them engage the listener in a special way. "Jan was a very perceptive person," says Penelope Ray. "She used to say how she liked the word 'notice,' that she wanted other people to notice things too. She often wrote about political and controversial issues, but in a way that would bring people together, not split them apart." One poignant example of this is Harmon's song "The Logger and the Spotted Owl," which begins:
- Logger cries out from the crest of a pine, timber low, timber
high
I've felled the great trees for most of my time, as did my father before me.
And how would I feed my family so dear, for a day, for a year
And where would I cradle my baby to bed if I am gone from the forest, he said.
The next verse continues:
- Owl cries out from the breast of a yew, t'hoo, t'hoo
On spotted wings this forest I've flown as did my mother before me.
And how would I feed my family so dear ...
The song goes on to include a verse spoken by the forest ("I've lived with this land for centuries ...") and leaves the listener with a complete and compassionate view of this complicated subject.
To Quasimodal Chorus members, as well as many others who knew Harmon, her music embodies her warm, caring personality as well as her insight and wit. "It was easy to feel I knew Jan after just a short time," says John Pincince. "She endeared people to her quickly." According to Penelope Ray, a few other musicians had recorded some of Harmon's songs in the past, but little of her choral music had ever been put on tape. "We felt it was our responsibility to get this music out," says Ray, And, she adds, recording So Bravely Dream has been an important part of the healing process for chorus members, who now number 24, since Harmon's death. "This was a very powerful thing for us to do after Jan died," says Ray. "It is a way of honoring her memory and working through our loss."
The chorus began recording in August 1994, in a woodshop at the Camden home of member Susan Shaw and her husband, Paul Cartwright. "We tried out the acoustics in several places, and this one was the best," says Brown, adding that their main challenge in using such a studio was dealing with interruptions from outside noises such as lawnmowers. Engineer Sonny True came to help them with the recording, mastering was done by Bruce Bogie of Northport, and now the tapes and CDs are being finished by a company in southern Maine.
Though the recording process has been long and at times grueling, singer Thomas Michaels says he is impressed with the group's dedication and commitment to getting the project done. "We have become a much tighter group, technically and in our ability to work together." And, says Brown, "not everyone in the group is a professional musician, but they've all done their part; the talent that has gone into making this tape is remarkable."
And what will the Quasimodal Chorus do now that their project is finished? "In the beginning, we gathered at Jan's house ..." read the introductory notes to So Bravely Dream. "We loved singing; we loved being together, we loved Jan; and now, although she is dead, we still meet regularly and sing as a chorus, by consensus, quasimodally."
To celebrate the release of So Bravely Dream, the Quasimodal Chorus will gather on Sunday, October 8, at 7 p.m. at the First Congregational Church in Camden. Open to the public free of charge (though donations will. be accepted), the evening will feature the music, stories and poems of Jan Harmon. Tapes and CDs will be available for purchase that evening and are also for sale in area stores and from the Quasimodal Chorus, P.O. Box 996, Rockport, ME 04856. The chorus will also be performing on Saturday, September 30, at the Windfall Fair at Merryspring Park in Camden.
-- Story by Sheila Polson
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