The Weight of Light – Creating Holiday Musical Cheer

Michael Slon is Director of Choral Music and Professor in the McIntire Department of Music at the University of Virginia College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where he leads the University Singers, Chamber Singers, and guest conducts the Charlottesville Symphony. His publications include work on American choral music and Leonard Bernstein; he also has ongoing conducting engagements with the Oratorio Society of Virginia and Charlottesville Opera.

‘Tis the season, and in between the classes, concerts and carols I’m grateful for the invitation to share something with Thoughts From the Lawn readers on music and UVA.

I have an unusual role here at the University – one that some may find outside the conventional borders of written scholarship, laboratory inquiry, classroom lectures, etc. And yet it traces a path back across 50,000 years to what anthropologists call “behavioral modernity,” designating cultures which share and congregate around certain common features, including language, cooking, jokes and games, religion – and music. Indeed, some scholars have suggested “that the arts are central to human evolution and survival,” as Thomas Turino writes in Music as Social Life, claiming music can “articulate the collective identities that are fundamental to forming and sustaining social groups, which are, in turn, basic to survival.”

That is where I (and my colleagues) come in, as a conductor and one of the people the university hires not only to think about but to make music for the community, to engage our students as musical artists – and specifically as Director of Choral Music, to cultivate ensemble singing here at UVA. We keep an active schedule each season, but at this time of year (as some of you have hopefully enjoyed), we get very busy – as groups do everywhere – creating holiday musical cheer. To summarize briefly, in recent weeks we have presented the sold-out Family Holiday Concerts (a beloved annual tradition at Old Cabell Hall with the University Singers and Charlottesville Symphony), brought the Chamber Singers to the UVA Hospital and the Student Health Center for caroling, performed several selections to open the treasured Lighting of the Lawn (perhaps as much a social as a musical event), and held the 56th annual Messiah Sing-In (started by my predecessor Professor Don Loach), which sees 500 to 700 community members come together to joyfully sing and play through parts of Handel’s oratorio Messiah – which he wondrously wrote in about four weeks. (We also had several concerts at the Paramount Theater with the community chorus I lead – the Oratorio Society of Virginia – making for a busy holiday season indeed!)

Frequently, this practice of spreading joy through music is itself light, joyful, uplifting, even adrenalin and endorphin-inducing – and I choose the word light in several senses. We think this time of year of the miracle of light celebrated in Hanukkah, the Christmas proclamation that “Light has come into the world,” the festive lights that adorn the season, and a sense of buoyancy. My physics friend and colleague, Professor Bob Hirosky, tells me, “Light is massless and therefore weightless everywhere.” At times, spreading light does feel light. 

And yet to take a fully rounded view, we might consider at least poetically the weight of light. Of course, those of us in the field could write other essays about the work of producing all this holiday music, the challenges and inevitable criticisms, or even about an ultimate Grinch, the COVID-19 pandemic, when we tried to keep these traditions going by creating virtual concerts and Zoom sing–ins. (Happily – with the help of Vice Provost Jody Kielbasa, President Jim Ryan, and others – our 2020 virtual Family Holiday Concert reached many thousands online.) But I have something a bit different in mind here. 

At the Family Holiday Concerts this year, we performed “Where Are You Christmas,” a song – famously sung by Faith Hill – which catalogues that feeling of not feeling the seasonal spirit in seeming abundance all around oneself. Everyone has had a year like that, a moment when it’s harder to feel the holiday spirit – perhaps because someone is no longer there, or is sick, perhaps because of a change in life circumstances, or any number of things. “Where are you Christmas, why can’t I find you?... Why can’t I hear music play?” We might think of the people in Ukraine, or the Middle East, or someone feeling loss or alone in our own town. It’s something to keep in mind as we look around these holidays. In its own way, the song speaks to those darker times – and still helps us find some light and resilience through the music. 

Professor Hirosky reminded me that things moving at the speed of light can’t have mass, but he qualified this adding, “Light does however have energy. …And light indeed exerts pressure on objects, so it's fair to coin a term like ‘the force of light’!” Whether we call it the force of light or of artistic beauty, it’s fulfilling to see our public-facing work raising spirits through the music, initiating the season in a communal act (which to my earlier point, may trace roots back thousands of years) – and at these concerts, I encourage audiences to share this heightened spirit with others through the season. Likewise, because music is (as some scholars suggest) an essential social act, I also encourage them – and you – to enjoy some music-making in your own homes, in whatever form that might take. Happy Holidays!    

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Footnote: In 2016, Professor Slon and the UVA University Singers were invited to create a UVA Holiday Greeting from the newly restored Rotunda. The video received 450,000+ views across various platforms, breaking UVA’s engagement record at the time. Enjoy an encore look at this here.