Virgins, Martyrs, and Saints
Virgins, Martyrs, and Saints
By Erick Brownstein
And Bridget McLellan
“I don’t know what to do or where to flee. Woe is me, I cannot complete this dress I have put on. Indeed I want to cast it off”
10 am.
Another incentive to wake up for french toast and blueberry pancakes.
11 am.
Jewish guy and Catholic ex-virgin visit St. Augustine’s Church in Montpelier to hear the unearthly haunting female voices of ANIMA.
ANIMA. A group of Vermont women performing 12th through 14th century medieval music. They are in their seventh season and they've released a compact disc recorded by Michael Billingsly and released on his Straight Arrow Recordings. From behind us, one church pew back: “Should we clap?”
We were wondering this ourselves.
“Should we clap?”
Good question.
Consider that you will probably have more chances to hear Anima perform at a church or community service since they keep to only three concerts per year, often bartering a few hymns or songs for the opportunity to use the church space.
“Give and Take.” Liz Thompson, director and founder of Anima, calls it.
We clap.
Another good question: What is an Anima?
Anima is the tortured soul from one of the first liturgical dramas, “Ordo Virtutum,” written by Hildegard Von Bingen in the 12th century. Liz emphasizes the continuing influence this visionary, abbess, naturalist, political advisor, healer, master musician and poet has had on the group.
At the age of three, Hildegard Von Bingen seeing “Light so great her soul trembled.” These visions continued throughout her life, In her forties she received a divine call to “tell and write” what she heard. Out of humility, she resided. Hildegard saw her role in the patriarchal church structure as one of cooperation, not rebellion. Her answer was to “Work, work work, “ It wasn’t until she was overwhelmed by illness that she began the long process of putting down those visions into a large body of work including the drama Ordo Virtutum and the Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations. Through the Virgin Mary she reverses the notion that the female body is evil, seemingly undoing what Eve has done. It is the healing feminine virtues, in her Order Virtutum, that attempt to heal the tortured Anima:
HUMILITY: (sings)
“I, Humility, Queen of the Virtues say:
come to me, you Virtues
and I’ll give you the skill
Later, when she’s sitting beside us on the church steps, we ask her what her vision for Anima is. She said it remains the same: they all aspire to not be professional musicians. They already lead professional lives: their careers range from pottery to teaching biology. You meet to sing and then they return to their lives richer. And although they don’t consider themselves professional musicians, they certainly perform as such.
Because of the potential to tour and put out more recordings, Anima is faced with a unique dilemma that most aspiring musicians will only ever hope for. Anima ia a community project and the lure of success in the outer world has caused the group to make a conscious choice to keep the music as part and piece of their lives in Vermont. These women work. They raise families. And they sing, beautifully. When the public came demanding a recording of their work, they went to their greater community for support and began a fund-raising campaign that began with the names on their mailing list. A second compact disc?”Not right away,” Liz said, the hope lingering that these women will indeed repeat the recording princess somewhere in the future. But there are mixed feelings in the group about the essential question of performance versus recording. Liz emphasized that her concept of community had a fundamental role in the group’s foundation. And yet, it is not necessarily a community of place that these 15 women experience. These women are scattered all throughout Vermont and make great effort to form a community based instead on a common love of this music. And the common desire to create this music together.
These women of Anima stage three annual concerts, two of which are dedicated to the seasons: a spring concert that is rich with the images of renewal. Green, water and light, and their mid-winter concert which attempts to lighten this “...season of anticipation and need.”
“The winter is fleeing in the lands
without sun and the rising light
taking over, does its duty.
“The beauty of nature becomes alive,
happy should all youth be, their
time is approaching.”
The theme for the upcoming spring concert is “Virgins, martyrs and Saints.” It is based on the third century legend of St. Ursula, one of the supposed 11,000 virgins put to death by Attila the Hun.
The concert is scheduled for Friday, may 5 at 8pm at the Episcopal Church in Hanover, New Hampshire. Saturday, May 6 at 8pm at St. Augustine’s Church in Montpelier, Vermont and Sunday, May 7 at 7 pm at Grace methodist Church in St. Johnsbury.
For information regarding Anima: (802) 229-4723
Erick Brownstein is a pretty cool cat who wrote about Harold Lice for the first Good Citation. His partner in crime this episode is Bridget McLellan, a writer from New York City who has recently made Burlington her home.