鈥淚 am trying to be a musician playing the music I care about,鈥� said Bontrager in an interview with an EMU reporter.

For him that passion is tri-faceted, where he plays: (1) early music, encompassing the medieval and Renaissance time periods; (2) 鈥渆xperimental鈥� or 鈥渇ree improvisational鈥� music; and (3) traditional music, which he explains as global music from oral traditions.

As a 2007 , Bontrager said he was not pigeonholed into a genre or required to only play a particular repertoire. In 2008, while enrolled in a master鈥檚 program in modern cello at the University of Maryland, Bontrager composed a piece for choir and instrumental ensemble as a , who had died while on a mission trip in Costa Rica.

鈥淚 started to play a lot more contemporary music [at Maryland] 鈥� new music 鈥� modern classical stuff,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 also started to play the viola da gamba 鈥� that is how I started to get interested in playing early music.鈥�

Like the cello, the viola da gamba is a bowed and stringed instrument, but it differs from a cello in that it has six rather than four strings and c-shaped holes rather than the typical f-shaped hole found on instruments in the violin family. The viola da gamba 鈥� also known as a viol 鈥� was most popular during the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

When Bontrager finished his master鈥檚 he moved to New Haven, Conn., where he 鈥渟tarted to figure out what I wanted to do musically.鈥�

There he ran across a group of people who were playing experimental music. 鈥淚t is basically completely freely improvised or music that is using improvised elements combined with notated music,鈥� he explained. 鈥淭here are various kinds of improvised music and all of them have a language of their own.鈥�

He began to play experimental music concerts in Connecticut with a trio called Broadcloth. One of the things he likes about experimental music is that it has no boundaries.

There are certainly regional and national styles that influence how a group of musicians play together, but 鈥渨hat makes it good or bad is totally up to the listener,鈥� he said. 鈥淧eople are listening and reacting and creating something together. It鈥檚 about the music developing in an organic way.鈥�

Hungry to spend time in another country and explore the European experimental scene, Bontrager found a master鈥檚 program in early music at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany. He was also drawn to studying early music in one of the European countries that produced so many well-known composers.

鈥淧eople who are interested in these new sounds are often the same people who are interested in Renaissance music,鈥� Bontrager explained. 鈥淭hat may be because there are less stringent rules musically 鈥� that general idea of freedom in music is something that bridges those two worlds.鈥�

He will be finishing his second master’s degree in the spring of 2014 but won鈥檛 necessarily return to the United States just yet. Next will be 鈥渁 grand experiment to see if I can make a career out of what I like to do.鈥�

On his website (), Bontrager speaks of the pleasure of fostering love of music, as he did when he was music director at an Episcopal church near New Haven: 鈥淲orking with the choir was fantastic, but the most compelling moments involved getting a mass of people who firmly believed they couldn鈥檛 participate in music to open their mouths and sing together, a cappella. . . .

鈥淸M]usic makes things happen in the doing, listening, and creating that has powerful and necessary social implications for our larger lives.鈥�

The concert will be held 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 22, in EMU’s Lehman Auditorium and will feature EMU music students and faculty performing alongside one another.

“Death cannot separate,” a new piece for choir and instrumental ensemble, composed by EMU alumnus Nathan Bontrager of Akron, Pa., will be presented as a tribute to classmate Matthew Garber of Elizabethtown, Pa. Bontrager is completing a master’s degree in cello performance at the University of Maryland.

2008 EMU graduate Matthew Garber, who died in a swimming accident in Costa Rica July 1 this year, singing with EMU’s Chamber Singers during the 2008 baccalaureate ceremony.

Garber, a 2008 nursing graduate, died on July 1 in a swimming accident while on a missions trip in Costa Rica. He was active in a variety of campus ministries and music as a student and received the “Cords of Distinction” honor at graduation this spring. Garber was scheduled to begin work as an emergency room nurse at Lancaster General Hospital in late August. Read the many online tributes to Matt in EMU’s reflections blog

“I wanted [the composition] to reflect the ways in which I knew Matt and the manner in which I thought he might want to be remembered in music. However, I wanted to be true to my own creative impulses as well,” Bontrager said. “My interactions with Matt ranged from raucous, laughter-filled meals at lunch to leading times of reflective worship at campus ‘Celebration’ services. I wanted to demonstrate this spectrum in the music, something that ranged from austere and mournful to jubilant and playful.

2008 EMU graduate Nathan Bontrager will play cello in “death cannot separate,” composed in memory of his friend and classmate, Matt Garber.

Bontrager said the piece, following portions of the text, “moves from a mood of somber recognition of death to a light dance of friendship remembered to an idyllic yet confident hope in the eternity of Matt’s friendship with all of us which remains preserved in memory. I knew Matt to range freely between these emotions, a trait which I deeply admired in him.

“Musically, I drew on experiences I shared with Matt in Chamber Singers both as a co-participant and as an observer,” Bontrager said. “The unaccompanied choral section near the end is an homage to the a cappella music that Matt always held on to even as he engaged in more popular forms of both secular and sacred music. Any time I hear a confident tenor voice leap out from a choir to lean into a beautiful dissonance I will always think of Matt and his love for music and the song of the church.

“My hope is that this piece can be both a somber and grateful remembrance of a friend we dearly loved, a memorial to the extraordinary person that Matt was and will remain in our memory,” he added.

Handel Oratorio

The program will include the oratorio, “Jubilate for the Peace of Utrecht 1713” by George Frideric Handel, featuring the combined EMU choirs, EMU orchestra and voice faculty member James Richardson, baritone; and “Misa Cubana,” a Cuban mass for choir and orchestra by Jose Maria Vitier. The director is Kenneth J. Nafziger, professor of music at EMU.

In 1713, the War of the Spanish Succession ended with a series of peace treaties (The Treaty of Utrecht) between Great Britain, France, and Spain. Terms were highly favorable to the English.

London celebrated this important national event with a State Service of Morning Prayer in St. Paul’s Cathedral with the royal family and nobility in attendance. In this Prayer Book liturgy, both Psalm 100 (Jubilate Deo) and the Te Deum are sung by a choir, and Handel was commissioned to provide large settings for choir, soloists, and orchestra.

“It is astonishing to realize that this is Handel’s first try in the English language,” noted Dr. Nafziger. At age 28 he could barely speak it, and yet this ‘Jubilate Deo’ has not a trace of tentativeness. Only Handel could write so internationally, summing up the German, Italian and English musical traditions with conciseness and brilliance.

“The year 2009 will be celebrated in world-wide events to mark the 250th anniversary of Handel’s birth,” noted Dr. Nafziger. “This concert anticipates the arrival of a year of reveling in the great music that Handel has left to us and to all the world.”

Jose Maria Vitier (b. 1954) is a composer and pianist whose compositions for piano, orchestra and chamber and jazz ensembles blend traditional and popular forms of Cuban music. His work is included in the repertoires of all major Cuban performers and musical groups.

Vitier has written music for more than 50 films, with “Fresa y Chocolate” (Strawberry and Chocolate) and “The Century of Lights” among the most recent. He has composed scores for television series, theater, ballet and dance productions, music for symphony orchestra, chamber music and choral music, sacred music and music for children.

Nafziger conducted the North American premier of “Misa Cubana” in Washington, D.C., in 2000 with the composer in attendance.

Admission to the concert is free, but a $10 donation is suggested to benefit the music department student scholarship fund.

The 草莓社区 will present a faculty recital 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 7, in Martin Chapel of the seminary building at EMU.

, harpsichordist and organist, and , violinist, will present a recital of baroque music, including pieces by J. S. Bach, Handel, Biber and Buxtehude. They will be assisted by Pedro Aponte, flutist, and Nathan Bontrager, cellist.

Dr. Griffing teaches violin and viola, coaches chamber music and conducts the EMU orchestra. She is also concertmaster of the Shenandoah Symphony Orchestra, a member of the Virginia Symphony and violinist with the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, N.C.

This past spring, she premiered a violin concerto written for her by Terry Vosbein, composer-in-residence at Washington and Lee University. She is also a founding member of Tal Consort, a chamber music group based in the Shenandoah Valley.

She earned her bachelor and master of music degrees from Indiana University, where she studied with Tadeusz Wronski, and her DMA in violin performance from Ohio State University.

Fast, a member of the EMU music faculty since 1975, teaches organ, piano, class piano, and music theory. He also teaches piano in the at EMU.

Fast received a BA degree from Bethel College, N. Newton, Kan., and an MM degree from Indiana University.

An active church musician, he is currently organist and choir director at Park View Mennonite church, Harrisonburg, and previously was organist at Asbury United Methodist Church and First Presbyterian Church, Harrisonburg.

Admission to the concert is free, but donations are welcomed for the EMU music department student scholarship fund.

John Bell is a breath of fresh air in environments filled with tedious and wearisome oration.

He stands and speaks directly to his audience, using few notes, or sits on a stool to carry on animated conversation, making profound statements in a rich accent using simple, clear-cut language, urging his listeners to employ their imaginations.

The songwriter-storyteller from the Iona Community, an ecumenical group based on an island off the west coast of Scotland, led the 草莓社区 community through a series of spiritual life week presentations, Jan. 9-13 on the theme, "Engaging Jesus."

Bell, who has written some 15 collections of worship resources employing music and liturgy for lay persons, spoke on several often overlooked or misperceived attributes of Christ – anger, humor, women and family life.

He pointed to "portrayals of Jesus in many Christmas carols and in artists’ renditions" as promoting images of Christ as timid, gentle, that carried over to adulthood.

"Jesus in his public ministry was a strong personality," Bell insisted. "Scripture indicates that he got angry, but didn’t sin. We need to see beyond the gloss if we’re to truly worship Christ and follow him."

In a presentation on Jesus and humor, Bell noted that "Jesus wept. It follows, then that he also laughed."

"Humor is culture- and language-based," Bell said. "What is funny in one culture may be misunderstood or even offensive in another."

Bell gave examples where he believes Jesus used humor in relating to others – some in his parables – and suggested that Jesus’ employed wordplays in Aramaic that his hearers would understand and appreciate but may not translate well into English-speaking societies.

"God delights in his creation – He loved the world and sent His Son so that His joy may be complete in you," the speaker said, adding: "I can’t envision a somber, stoic Christ who seldom, if ever, laughed."

In a coffeehouse setting, Bell took on tough questions posed by students – if they could ask Jesus any one question, what would it be?

And difficult ones they were, dealing with thorny issues like homosexuality – a topic not directly addressed by Christ in his earthly ministry. Bell pointed out that Christ spoke most frequently on "the sin of malicious gossip," something that many Christians today have much difficulty with.

Drawing from his understanding of scripture, Bell offered thoughtful reflections in responding to other questions ranging from corporal punishment to intelligent design arguments – "some evolutionists seem to hold the Earth and the environment in higher regard than many creationists," he said – the use of inclusive language in referring to God, what it means to "become as a child" in order to see the Kingdom of heaven and what Jesus thinks of today’s church.

"Too often, it appears that the church is a gathering of strangers who come to be entertained rather than to engage each other and experience community," Bell stated.

Bell concluded the week with a focus on Jesus’ views of family life, noting that Christ didn’t grow up in the "typical nuclear family of today" of a mother and father and 2.5 children. "In Jesus’ day, the mortality rate was one in four, few people lived into their forties, and Jesus in his ministry was predisposed towards widows and orphans," he said.

"We say that blood is thicker than water, but Jesus demonstrated just the opposite in his entering into human history," Bell said, noting that the act of baptism brings persons together into a family made up of people of all backgrounds and cultures.

During the week, participants sang worship songs composed by Bell, some of which appear in "Sing the Journey," a recently-released supplement to the Brethren-Mennonite Hymnal.

Two sessions were also held at neighboring Park View Mennonite Church, which co-sponsored these evening programs. Bell led a vesper service and an evening of story and song that took participants on a musical journey around the world.

"John Bell impressed on me the need to sit with the stories of Jesus’ life, understanding and being transformed by the humanity of Christ as He walked upon earth," said Nathan Bontrager, a music education and cello performance major from Akron, Pa. "The overall experience of John’s songs and talking about worship over coffee with him has caused me to have renewed vigor for the song of the church and to seek to find and create worship experiences that are not flippant but have purpose and integrity," he added.

“I was impressed by the reality of Jesus that John presented in his conversations. His stories gave a new light to the life of Jesus and the reality of Jesus’ ‘human-ness,'” said Carissa Sweigart, a senior elementary education major from Hesston, Kan. “It was a reminder that following Christ’s example means finding ways to bring God’s kingdom on earth. John’s Scottish accent and red shoes also made his presentations more engaging,” she added.