Like so many, my first encounter with Alice Parker was through her music, specifically the hymn and spiritual arrangements found in almost every church and academic choral library. But it wasn’t until I had a full-time church job and continuing education funds that I plucked up the courage to apply for her Score Study Workshop advertised in The American Organist. While I knew she was a brilliant and respected musician, I had no idea how profoundly her teaching would shape my life and work over the next 18 years.

Details from that first workshop in January 2006 are a bit fuzzy but there is one experience seared in my memory. In an afternoon session focused on congregational song, at a table full of distinguished church musicians, Alice boldly asked the group, “Why are you introducing new hymns to your congregation with the organ? All you’re giving them is pitch data!” It was like she had placed a ticking time bomb in the middle of the room. We sat in stunned silence while she waited to see if anyone had a good answer before disarming it with a brilliant response.

Alice was emphatic. Nothing could rival the human voice in the way it models qualities of sound, subtleties of style and text stress, and the emotional connection that leads to vibrant, relational, and meaningful singing. She believed music is best transmitted ear to ear and heart to heart, and for decades she skillfully modeled this approach in workshops, symposiums, and Community SINGs around North America, in the recording studio with the singers of Melodious Accord, and in her daily craft as a composer and arranger.

Her words resonated deeply and challenged me to reassess the way I led song in my congregation. I was inspired to step away from the keyboard more and began to use my voice to teach and invite others. While nowhere near as skilled as Alice in those first clumsy attempts, she helped me realize song leadership was something I could practice. And it didn’t require perfection so much as courage, tenacity, and an unwavering belief in the group’s capacity to make music.

In 2009, not long after I was called to serve Park Avenue Christian Church in New York City, Melodious Accord began looking for a new congregation to host Alice’s annual Score Study Workshop and Spirituals SING in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We jumped at the opportunity and for the next four years the church was always full of singing come mid-January.

Participants would brave the winter weather to the Upper East Side, settle in with coffee and pastries, and then spend the day singing. The energy Alice generated in her teaching was like a warm fire that made you want to lean in, to burrow deeper. Our pencils could barely keep up with the metaphors, keen insights, and brilliant one-liners that flowed out of her as we excavated the music she selected for the week.

We spent lavish amounts of time with the text of each piece, regardless of the composer, musical style, or language. First, we’d speak it aloud like we were reading a poem – with intention and care. Then we’d quietly chant in rhythm with sprechstimme-like declamation, delighting in the shape of vowels, the percussive nuance of consonants, and pockets of silence that counterbalanced and punctuated sound. Only when we had come to appreciate these subtle dimensions of style and structure would we add pitch. It was always the melody first, singing softly enough to hear ourselves and those around us. Bass, tenor, and alto parts were added when we could sing in a way that revealed deep care and an extraordinary amount of listening. The music had to sparkle, like Alice’s eyes did when she was teaching.

Score Study participants at Park Avenue Christian Church in New York City (January 2010)

Alice was emphatic that the notes on the page were not music. Hold it up to your ear. It makes no audible sound! But the singer/interpreter is in relationship with the symbols on the two-dimensional page and their own voice, with the goal of bringing those sounds to life in a way that compels others to join in. At the heart of her teaching was an invitation to listen and internalize the layered, interconnected elements of a score, not as things to be mastered but “cooperating with them in love” to quote Dorothy Sayers. There was never a public performance of any of the music we studied, but I remember those experiences of singing together more vividly than almost any performance I have been part of.

At the end of the day, we would put our scores down and Alice would lead the group in singing folk songs, lullabies, and Spirituals by rote. She would line them out with the same care and focus she brought to plainchant, Brahms, or her own compositions and arrangements.

We had the gift of learning from her in the autumn season of her creative life, and the fruit was so ripe and plentiful. Alice shared a lifetime of experiences with us through song and story, and her wisdom felt integrated and unpretentious. She wasn’t interested in choral singing or composition as an academic exercise but used relatable images and metaphors that grounded us in our bodies and lived experience. And whether you were a person of faith or not, there were moments singing together touched something holy, even sacramental. We savored the words, rhythms, and pitches like a meal that Alice invited us to appreciate and share together.

In the following years, I was invited to join the Melodious Accord Board and participated in several recording projects. We even documented a Hymn SING to capture how Alice encouraged and cajoled groups to singing together. All these experiences reinforced how intentional and how consistent she was about modeling the sound she wanted to hear. Her voice alone could invite and encourage folk of varied musical experiences and skill to sing with an extraordinary sense of musicianship and style – from jaded professionals to reluctant congregational warblers. She understood how to create spaces where making music together was the goal. Whether we sang a Bach chorale or a folk song, from the page or by rote, she invited us to regard the music like we would a beloved friend or companion.

When my vocation shifted away from full-time church work to consulting and non-profit leadership with Music that Makes Community, Alice became a conversation partner and cheerleader. She was one of the few people who truly understood the unique, itinerant work I was doing and encouraged me to keep at it. As our relationship evolved from teacher-student to something akin to colleagues, we wondered together about how one could teach song leading. Was there a workshop or a course that could help musicians bring Alice’s fine-tuned skills and awareness into their classrooms, choirs, and congregations?

Alice leads one of three Community SINGs at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, MO (October 2018)

In October 2018 we convened and led Sharing the Song at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, gathering twenty musicians, clergy, and seminarians to explore song leading as an embodied practice. Each morning the group would dive deep into melody study with Alice and her insights were met with gratitude and wonder. Then for three evenings in a row, she led Community SINGs (each focused on different repertoire) with an energy and musicianship that were astounding. Let’s not forget, she was in early 90’s.

Working alongside her as a collaborator, I saw Alice learning from and with the group. She was keenly listening, asking challenging questions, and inviting participants to share songs they had brought. As she approached text and music with relentless curiosity and deep humility, she invited us to cultivate those qualities, too. From that foundation, I was able to invite the group to explore how our voices and bodies could communicate with clarity and intention. It was an exhausting, exhilarating week but she was genuinely excited about what we did together and all she was learning in the process.

Our Sharing the Song cohort at the end of the a rich week of singing and learning (October 2018)

In 2018, Alice also mentioned writing a book about song leading and she shared several excerpts by email. On a trip to Singing Brook Farm in November, both to debrief our experience of Sharing the Song and plan for its next iteration, we sat in rocking chairs in her studio as she read the final chapter of what is now The Gift of Song. As I listened, I was overwhelmed with gratitude and felt like I was in the presence of a seer or mystic.

Her writing, like her teaching, was full of images drawn from the natural world – the movement of water and air, qualities of lightness and weight, the movement of the human body or animal bodies through space. Like a contemporary Hildegard of Bingen, Alice understood that music and love are the heart of the universe. And she gave witness to that mystery with her words and in her life’s work.

The pandemic was difficult for Alice and the last time I saw her in person was a brief visit to the farm in November 2022. She was recovering from a serious accident and getting around well, if a bit slower than usual. We again sat in rocking chairs, this time in the kitchen, and reflected on the challenges of the prior years, especially the isolation of quarantine and the ache of not being able to sing with others.

With Alice in the kitchen of her home in Hawley, MA (November 2022)

She asked what I was doing outside of work to sustain my musicianship and nourish my soul, and I was touched that my mentor, colleague, and, dare I say friend, showed such genuine concern for my growth and well-being. Even though her eyesight was fading and she was facing physical limitations, Alice maintained a remarkable capacity for kindness and care. Sincere encouragement and affection were a thread running through all her relationships, personal and professional. If Alice was leading a group and they sang a pitch or rhythm differently than she modeled it, she would smile, sing softer, and invite them to keep listening. There was no harsh correction. You never felt diminished or denigrated, but you were invited to keep trying until her affirming voice let you know you succeeded.

There is no way Alice could have done the remarkable work she did for so many decades without love. She demonstrated love for herself, love for the texts she savored and set to music, love for the pitches and rhythms that delighted her ears and musical imagination, and love for the many, many people she had the opportunity to collaborate with, teach, and conduct throughout her life.

Every time I rehearse a choir or lead a group in song, I hear her gentle, insistent voice inviting me to love each syllable and melodic shape, to listen for the deeper music they reveal, and then sing them in a way that is so clear and inviting that others are compelled to join the song. As I continue to show up to this work, I pray her legacy as a song leader and teacher lives on in transformative, life-affirming ways.

Thank you, Alice, for all you gave us - more gifts than we could ever count. But perhaps the greatest of them was your voice, leading us with humility, humor, patience, courage, and so much love.