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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (245
notes).

Note 244 by UMNS on July 29, 1997 at 15:45 Eastern (5698 characters).

Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT:  Linda Bloom                          432(10-21-71B){244}
          New York (212) 870-3803                    July 29, 1997

EDITORS NOTE: Photos available

For jazz pianist, music director
spirituality comes from art

by Linda Bloom*

     NEW YORK (UMNS) -- Jazz pianist and composer Paul Knopf finds
his spirituality in art.
     A visit to Italy, where countless paintings depict different
artists' interpretations of religious events, inspires him to
write a Protestant version of the Latin Mass.
     A feeling of despair propels him to the Bible and leads him
to compose a song based on Ecclesiastes.
     The words of a pastor's sermon on the permanence of God's
love in an impermanent world launch him into a rendition of George
Gershwin's "Our Love is Here to Stay."
     And while the 70-year-old musician enjoys the intellectual
challenge of crafting a piece, art, he says, "has to be from the
heart."
     As music director and composer-in-residence since 1985 at
Washington Square United Methodist Church in Greenwich Village,
Knopf has written anthems, composed jazz operas on Martin Luther
and John Wesley, and, with current pastor Schuyler Rhodes, has
redesigned Sunday worship there.
     "He is, for us, our resident Bach," Rhodes said.
     Bach may seem an odd model for a jazz musician. But Knopf --
who studied classical composition after serving in World War II
and earned a bachelor's degree from the Julliard School and New
York University -- has never confined himself to just one musical
style.
     His jazz influences were Thelonius Monk and Charlie Mingus,
but he also has incorporated Latin American, ragtime, New Orleans,
swing and blues styles into his work. He has served as an
accompanist for several dance companies, including the Martha
Graham Studio and Dance Theatre of Harlem, and has experimented
with the German cabaret form.
      Knopf started building a promising career as a jazz artist
in the 1950s, but was considered a maverick. "Classical buffs said
it was too much jazz and jazz buffs said there was too much
classical," he recalls.
     In the end, the stress of dealing with critics, booking
agents and club owners led to a "terrible defeat in my life," he
said.
     "Sometimes they would court me and sometimes they would push
me away," he explained. "My psyche wasn't strong enough to deal
with it."
     Knopf, who is a Lutheran, decided to blend his love of jazz
music with his faith and took his first religious commission from
Judson Memorial Church in 1964. There, he became an originator of
Christian jazz worship in New York. He continues to be a
participant in jazz vespers at St. Peter's Lutheran Church.
     A 1967 commissioned piece by Judson, "The Faith of a
Radical," became "a movement inspiration" in both antiwar and
civil rights circles, according to Knopf, and was performed at
churches, peace rallies and college campuses.
     It was through his work at Judson that he became acquainted
with the late Rev. Paul Abels, then pastor of Washington Square,
and made a deal to help with the music at worship in exchange for
use of the sanctuary for concerts. Later, he became the church's
full-time music director.
     "I have more freedom as an artist inside the church than I
have on any other stage," he declared.
     One of his specialties is improvisations on hymns, featured
during his Wednesday lunchtime concerts at Washington Square. Last
summer, he presented a workshop on the topic at the American Guild
of Organists Centennial Convention.
     Occasionally, Knopf combines the hymn tune with a popular
composition in which romantic love translates into faith for him.
During an improvisation on "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," for
example, he inserted "Someone to Watch Over Me."
     "I'm trying to capture, in my compositions, the spontaneity
of an improvisation," he said.
     Rhodes considers his music director to be a composer of major
significance. "I think, in a hundred years, they're going to be
playing Paul Knopf's music," he said.
     The jazz opera, "John Wesley, God's Apprentice," was
conceived after he had written a musical play about Martin Luther
and Rhodes asked him to try one on Wesley.
     Focusing on broader issues than just the founding of
Methodism, it is written as a play within a play. An actor
planning to portray Wesley meets his ghost, who straightens him
out concerning a few misconceptions about his life. "There's a
parallel between an artist and his inspiration and a religious,
saintly person and his inspiration," Knopf explained.
     The "Mass in AA(ron) and E(mma)" -- the modern mass for
chorus and vocal quartet that was inspired by the trip to Italy
and performed in 1996 -- was named after the pastor's children and
based on the life of Washington Square church. The pastor's wife,
Lisa Quoresimo, conducted the ensemble.
     Knopf currently is working on a Christmas piece that was
intended to be an oratorio "but now it's getting more dramatic."
     Rather than the traditional Christmas story, it focuses such
issues as Joseph's coming to terms with the fact that he is not
the father of Mary's baby and the abuse of political power by
Herod.
     Knopf likens Herod to Richard III. "He gradually unravels
from someone who wants to do good to [someone who orchestrates]
the slaughter of the innocents," he pointed out.
                              #  #  #
      
     * Bloom is director of the New York office of United
Methodist News Service.   
      

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