Piano single “Lo, How a Bleak Midwinter” and why I arranged these two carols
On this, the 2020 winter solstice, darkest day of a dank, stressful year, I present to you this new piano arrangement and medley that I wrote last week especially for today and the weird Christmas and holiday season we find ourselves in.
Listen to “Lo, How a Bleak Midwinter” on Bandcamp now.
When you listen, you’ll notice two familiar carols. Why these two? Grief, in short. The grief that seems to bleed in from all sides and up through the ground as we continue a season filled with losses big and small.
The first carol is an homage to our local choir, a group that has lost its ability to spend time together. Last December I was out with the Gwaii Singers, touring the village and singing carols at the hospital, an extended care home, and elsewhere. We haven’t seen one another much since March, but one of the group’s favourite and most enthusiastic carols is “Lo, How A Rose E’er Blooming”.
“In the Bleak Midwinter” is one of my favourites, because, especially in December, I crave any music, art, or conversation that is remotely melancholy or absurd. Joy? I welcome it, when it’s honest. But, too often in my experience, religious capital-J Joy feels like a Christmas requirement instead of a possibility. Joy has been stuffed into my consciousness like too many baked goods and Coca-Cola ads featuring carefree polar bears on dwindling sea ice.
There is no room at the metaphorical inn for grief, anger, or sadness. What if these normal, necessary emotions were also part of Christian and secular holiday celebrations alongside helpings of joy, peace, love, and hope?
Our Christmas traditions are unequipped to handle 2020.
This year, I propose a variation (welcoming anyone from other backgrounds too) marked by open and honest grief. Let’s canonize the Airing of Grievances. Or if Festivus isn’t for you, then maybe schedule time for a Public Validation of Sadness. Music has helped me do this for years and has ensured that I stay emotionally honest more than just about anything else.
Instruments help, too. The piano you’ll hear in the recording arrived at my place in February just in time for a chaotic year spent at home, and I’m grateful. It has become a good friend.
This recording wasn’t on my agenda for December at all – as I’m able, I’m making an album to share with you in 2021 – but a prompt came at the right time. Pete at the Haida Gwaii Radio Society asked if I would send something in as part of a special Christmas broadcast. I agreed, but it seemed that rehashing a smooth jazz Christmas standard (fun though that is) was not right for 2020 and our collective exhaustion. So I got to work, tuned the piano, and this is what came out.
Kindly visit Bandcamp to listen to this new arrangement and medley for solo piano, “Lo, How A Bleak Midwinter”.
The price is pay-what-you-can because I want everyone to have access, no matter their means.
The price is also pay-what-you-can because I need money to sustain this artistic, creative, musical, chronically ill life in new ways, which I’ll talk more about soon.
And, friends in the Southern hemisphere, please enjoy today’s literal brightness for the rest of us.
Still to come: the sheet music for solo piano. Email me to pre-order.