Fall 2021 News from Cori Belle

Thanks-Seasoning

I have been woefully absent from this newsletter of late. I haven't forgotten about you - in fact, I think of you often and miss making music with and for you! This fall season has been an incredibly busy, creative one for me, albeit mostly void of music-making. 

While on hiatus from my community choir role and taking a backseat to worship leading at church, I have been navigating the waters of volunteerism at my girls' school and my church's children's ministry. Teaching, organizing, and crafting have been general themes of late, with nursing thrown in every few weeks for good measure! It is wonderful to be more fully a part of my little communities, and with that have come the usual fall colds accompanied by the unusual self-imposed quarantines and cancelling of events. But amidst all the busy and unusual and sometimes stressful turns of events, I have much to be thankful for. 

I am thankful for music, which may go dormant for a season but is always there to return to; for good health; for the blessing of friends and family near and far; for God's faithful provision in all things, especially in uncertain times; and for the gift of His Son, Jesus, who makes possible peace with God and with all men. 

I hope you have a wonderful, reflective, and happy Thanksgiving...with perhaps a little music thrown in your celebrations!

 

 

This hymn is sung annually at my girls' school, as we get ready to break for the Thanksgiving holiday. It is increasingly rare to find congregational singing like this, with parts - and descant in the last verse!

Building...Creating 

Reprinted from Keith and Kristyn Getty's "Monday Meditation," 11/22/21 

"For we - even our poets and musicians and inventors - never, in the ultimate sense make. We only build. We always have materials to build from…" 

So wrote C.S. Lewis who after many years of building with words went home to be with the Lord 58 years ago today. Lewis had an otherworldly gift of turning our thinking the right way up; all of life springing from the Creator and from that mountaintop seeing everything else. 

We breathe borrowed air, we make pathways on His land, we live in bodies that are not our own. We are building with blocks already made for us. We shape words that He first spoke to us. We gather notes that echo from His handiwork. We nurture our lives, our families, our friendships, our world in the wisdom of the One who first thought of them. 

Beautifully crafted words helped bring Lewis to Christian faith. On reading George MacDonald’s ‘Phantastes’ he said it helped ‘to convert, even baptize his imagination’. A washed imagination wakens the heart to wonder, to eternity, to a longing for the Lord. In the early 1930s his life had been transformed to worship and serve the Lord. He focused the rest of his time on using his God-given craft to draw people to Christ. 

The hymn ‘This is my Father’s World’ (Maltbie Babcock, 1901) reminds me of Belfast- born C.S. Lewis who has inspired so many of us. His listening ears were opened, He recognized the Lord’s voice and it shaped everything. An ancient music he hadn’t understood. A deeper magic as the Narnia stories tell. At this time of Thanksgiving we are grateful to know it as well and so sing with all creation. This thankfulness helps sow and water our remaining time and everything He has given us to make it known to others. 

This is my Father's world, 
And to my listening ears 
All nature sings, and round me rings 
The music of the spheres… 
This is my Father's world: 
O let me ne'er forget 
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, 
God is the Ruler yet… 
New lyric video to ‘This is my Father’s World’ from ‘Confessio’ album

Around the Web 

A cool new website with access to piano lessons from the world's best pianists. 

Thoughts on being A Self-Coached Musician from the Cross-Eyed Pianist. 

A cool spotlight on a young pianist from Silverdale, WA, on Classical King FM's program, From the Top. (Listen starting at 8:20) 

Upcoming Concerts 

When I start practicing... LOL! 
Would you consider coming to hear some Christmas music? Let me know!

 

This content is from Cori's Fall 2021 Newsletter. If you would like to receive her newsletters in your inbox, click to subscribe here.

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