Alice Hughes is our Woman of the Week, co-founder of Seraphim Six Productions, nominated for her work in church choir music. You see her here with her new pup, Hildy; conducting Lamentations during Holy Week at her home parish of St. Lawrence in Felton, California; and conducting her community choir in Santa Cruz, California. We asked her to tell you how she came to focus on Orthodox music overall and on music notation in particular:
“I was chrismated into the Orthodox Church. when I was eight months pregnant with my daughter, Juliana. I was in one of the Evangelical Orthodox parishes, whose members were chrismated into the Church all at once. I had to immediately start figuring out and finding music that I had zero understanding of and where we were given very few resources. Eventually, Fr David Anderson came to us and brought a wealth of knowledge and music. I started to really learn liturgy from him. I knew how to direct a choir–my degree was in that. Fr. David brought all manner of handwritten, scribbled pieces of paper. I knew no one could easily sing from those, so I began to typeset with an old computer program called Deluxe Music Construction Set. That thing was such a monster. I only had a little knowledge of typesetting, although I'd been a singer for my entire life.
“In the early 1990s, I came out to Saint Vladimir’'s Seminary Summer Music Institute and met Vlad Morosann, Mark Bailey, and that whole crew. Vlad pointed me to a program called Finale and mentored me. I could call him, ask a question. and he would have the answer. I also began my relationship with the Orthodox musicians that eventually became the entity PSALM. Our lofty goal was to bring together Orthodox musicians from across jurisdictions to support and learn from one another. We started publishing a newsletter called PSALM Notes, which had articles about Orthodox music and services. I was the editor. We published that for 10 years, with two or three issues a year. Those articles are timeless, and people still delve into them. All the issues are still available on the Six Seraphim website under Our Resources page.
“That's when I really began to hone my typesetting skills. I would typeset a piece, and then Vlad would rip it apart. Then Anne Schoepp, the other co-founder of Seraphim Six Productions, and I began to work through a lot more music. Our parish did many services every year: vespers and liturgy, yes, but also matins every Sunday, and vigils for the twelve feasts. We had an active youth choir that sang weekday liturgy once a week, and we put out unison and two-part music for them. I ended up with literally thousands of typeset pieces of music on my computer for the entire church year, and we realized we needed to start sharing that. About two years ago, we decided to invest in upgrading our website and doing it right, which is not money we will probably ever recoup, but it is now a fabulous website with intuitive navigation that allows people to easily search and find the music they are looking for. My goal in retirement is to make it an even bigger resource for people.
“Another huge part of my life is teaching music literacy and figuring out ways to elevate the musicianship and vocal technique in choirs. How many churches have choirs where everyone has a great music education, and they all know how to read music? Very few. Often, even the director is not a trained conductor, simply the best musician in the parish, who may have played clarinet in high school. That is why Anne and I started the Liturgical Singing Seminars that we did (almost) annually in California from 1992 through 2013. Those eventually came under the umbrella of PSALM.”
Axia!
Our Woman of the Week is Alice Hughes, nominated for her work in Orthodox choir music. You see her here conducting at a workshop; with her daughter, conductor and former Woman of the Week Juliana Woodill, at Pascha this year at All Saints of North America in Alexandria, Virginia; and doing a recent vocal workshop at Freedom High School in Virginia. We asked her how Orthodox music notation can lie to you:
“Seraphim Six Productions is a music publishing company, for downloadable Orthodox music in English. Our aim is to enable conductors and choir singers to more easily sing the services. My partner, Anne and I, are convinced that if the music is well typeset so that the notation is accurate–if the music notation doesn’t lie to you–you can sing more music, more beautifully, and more quickly.
“How can music notation lie to you? In Orthodox music, it lies to you in a variety of ways. For example, all half notes are not “equal,” and some of the time that's fine, but sometimes the half note is really a dotted half note or a whole note, not a half note. Why not notate it that way? Why make singers guess?
“My daughter Juliana and I were talking about an example of this because she and I are working on a project to update our parish choir books. In the Great Litany, there were repeat bars. And I said, ‘Those repeat bars are lying. They're not repeats. You have a “Lord have mercy” and then another “Lord have mercy” and then a repeat bar back to the first “Lord have mercy.” But that's not what it is. But that's not what the intent is. The intent is that deacon intones a petition. We sing, “Lord have mercy,” then he sings another petition, and we sing the next one. So we talked about how to notate it accurately. Anyway, that is a subtle way in which the music is lying. Now, did I understand the intent? Yes, but why have music lie? Why not have it accurately reflect, what the liturgical action is. So making sure that the notation makes use of the norms of musical notation to create published scores that choirs can use, which then enables them to sing more correctly, is a major goal of Seraphim Six Publications, so you don't have to be a total insider to understand the music.
“Here's the thing. People say, ‘I don't read music.’ And my response as a 40-year teacher of music is, ‘Well, you don't think you do, but actually you do more than you realize. You do know when the notes are going up and down and although you might not have a clear idea of exactly what that means, however, part of your brain is innately learning to read music, whether you think you can or not.’ And that's why I don't like to have the score lie.
“The other aspect of creating a beautiful score is making sure it is easily readable. The words fly across the page. Are the words flowing in such a way that the reader can easily read and understand what they're reading? The old Saint Vlad’s books, which were a miracle and a wonderful thing for many years, are typeset in all caps. Our brain does not process words in all caps. In fact, what it leads to is shout singing. We need to be able to read it and understand it as we're singing it. Not just reading words, but reading and understanding. That's also part of what we're trying to do, you know, and is that a tall order! Are we 100% successful? No, but are we making it better? I think we are making it better.”
As always, we asked Alice Hughes, our Woman of the Week, to tell you about her morning routine. You see her here with her grandchildren and in her other career as a musical theater professional at the Cabrillo Stage in Aptos, California, in Fiddler on the Roof (2016), Tom Foolery (2021), and singing "Life with Harold" in Fully Monty (2011). The icons for her prayer corner aren't yet unpacked, so for the time being, she is using the diptych that she carries on all her travels:
“My morning routine has changed dramatically in the last three weeks, and that's because I have a new puppy. So I am now in mommy mode. I'm trying to mesh my old morning routine with my new morning routine. But when I first wake up, I play a few brain games to wake up my brain. I do Words with Friends. I do Sudoku. I do this little block game. The idea is to get my brain engaged, active, and awake. The puppy, Hildy, has made that a little challenging because the first thing I have to do is run that puppy out to use the potty and then snuggle and playtime with the puppy. Eventually, I get her breakfast–and some Earl Grey tea for me–and then go out for our morning walk. One of the reasons for getting the puppy, was to keep me very honest about my morning walk!
“I just did this big huge move from California to Virginia. So I'm refinding my feet. I cared for my mother for years. She passed a year ago in May. She passed just at the time I was retiring from my 20-year school job; a week later my sister passed unexpectedly. So this year has been about learning to deal with grief in a real way. A friend of mine said, ‘Alice, you just experienced what we call a life quake,’ and I thought, ‘Oh, that's it!’ I've always been a resilient person but all of that all at once definitely knocked the wind out of my sails.
“I live in a beautiful area for walking, a planned community with all these beautiful riparian areas, ponds and meadows. Walking and being in nature is my morning meditation, when I can think about what the day is going to bring, what typesetting projects I am working on, how many students do I have for the afternoon? My priest, Father Alessandro, likes to have weekday liturgies about three times a month, and I'm usually the person conducting those. On those days, I'm up early to get my dog walk in before I race off to liturgy.”
Thank you, Alice!
You can learn more at Alice's two websites;