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Keep singing

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By Hyon O'Brien

People often comment on how well, in general, Koreans sing. It's not an accident, but the fruit of the Korean educational system's emphasis on music from the early years. I remember singing with my classmates in the classroom all through my primary school days.

When I turned 16, my high school music teacher was approached by an American Methodist missionary, Rev. Abersold. He was recruiting seven high school girls to participate in a choir he was starting at the chapel of the U.S. Army base in Wonju. We were to be joined by seven boy students from a nearby boys' high school. My music teacher asked me to join the group, not for my singing talent but because I was known as an English speaker (a rare case in 1963) to help out with communication.

The 14 of us met with Rev. Abersold every?Saturday morning?to rehearse for Sunday worship at Camp Long. This went on for two years, a total of 208 sessions before we graduated and left the choir. I left Wonju in the spring of 1965 to attend Ewha Womans University in Seoul. The next time I sang was when I joined a choir 15 years later in Teaneck, New Jersey, our home for 17 years.

During those 208 meetings at the chapel, something unexpected happened. I got to know Jesus Christ and became a Christian. I started loving singing hymns. I also discovered what singing does for my soul. The peace and joy I sensed within were new feelings. This led me to appreciate opera and the artistry of the singers, as I understood more acutely that excellent singing doesn't come overnight.

During my high school days, our music teacher made it a requirement that we memorize Handel's Largo, the opening aria from the 1738 opera "Xerxes," and be able to recite it in class one by one from memory (Ombra mai fu di vegetabile cara ed amabile, soave piu). That tune and those words are still with me. It is so important to be introduced to great music during our formative years.

All of the 2,000 Peace Corps volunteers who served in Korea between 1966 and 1981 experienced the Korean singing tradition, whether after a group picnic, at a "makgeolli" house after work, or at other group functions that required celebration. Singing was the primary method of group entertainment. Not much of a singer, my husband had to memorize Nam Joon's classic "Aching Heart" in order to be ready for such occasions. He realized it was impolite to refuse to sing. Many volunteers became quite proficient, and it enhanced their rapport with Koreans immensely.

Ten years later in 1973, when our first daughter was born, it was natural for me to sing Brahms' lullaby when it was bedtime. This was our ritual after her Father read her a story. She expected to hear me sing the lullaby while she was being gently patted on the back. We did the same three years later when our second daughter came along.

For birthdays and holidays, it was an O'Brien family tradition to gather around the piano and sing, mostly from the songbook collection "Fireside Book of Folk Songs", under the direction and accompaniment of my mother-in-law, a professional pianist and choir director. When my mother visited us from Korea for six months in 1981, she was deeply touched by how our family unity and warmth was strengthened by singing together.

The power of music was demonstrated when President Obama sang "Amazing Grace" during his eulogy for Rev. Clement Pinckney who was killed in a shooting at a church in Charleston, South Carolina in July 2015. It was more powerful than mere words of comfort to the congregation hearing him. The effect of music penetrating to the core of the soul was evident as the congregation responded to the emotion of the hymn.

John Lewis (1940-2020), the civil rights activist and leader and a U.S. Congressman from Georgia for 33 years, passed away on July 17. He served as one of the principal organizers of the 1963 March on Washington, during which Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. He endured many beatings by police and others, and was imprisoned some 40 times. But he never gave up: no one could crush his spirit, no one could distract him from his mission to bring about racial equality and social justice to his beloved country, a calling he felt he received from God. The songs within him for freedom and justice couldn't be silenced. There was planted in his heart a desire to raise his voice in triumph on the day when all will be treated with respect and dignity. The invisible songs that he planted in everyone will arise and shine. Indeed, one day we shall overcome and will sing together, "free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we're free at last".

Our coronavirus pandemic for the past seven months cannot crush our spirit and will not take away our singing and our smiles. As Harry Belafonte reminds us, "You can cage the singer but not the song." Let's keep singing.


Hyon O'Brien (hyonobrien@gmail.com) is a former reference librarian now living in the United States.





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