Quiet Hearts

My heart found a place to be quiet, to relax, to rest, to soak up beauty. Beauty in the form of sound. I attended Quiet Hearts at St. Andrews Wesley Church on Burrard Street, in Vancouver, last week.

A friend of mine introduced me to this wonderful weekly event and now I want to share it with everyone I can. Craig Addy is part of the Amicus Music Duo. For one and a half hours, starting at 4:30 pm on Wednesdays, he plays piano and his colleague Howard Meadows plays the clarinet. (Sometimes they have other musician guests). Admission is by donation.

The special thing about this program is that they are improvising and just composing music on the spot, for our listening pleasure. In fact, you can write down a “request” – a few words that might suggest a type of “feeling” you are seeking to experience, and he will then convey that through their improvisations: peace, tranquility, strength, courage….

I just sat in the beautiful church as the sun streamed through the stained glass windows and closed my eyes. No words are spoken, no one interacts with each other – everyone just relaxes quietly, focuses inward and listens.

The music is soothing, peaceful and very moving. It was a tonic to just stop moving, talking, looking….and just be soothed by their accomplished and inspired playing. All the pieces were interesting and varied. The clarinet player would move around the church and his instrument would fade out and then a little later I would hear it coming from another direction or location.

Sadly, there were not many attendees the other Wednesday. When Craig said: “I want to have 100 people here on May 20th” I made a promise to myself to tell everyone I could about this delightful experience. I’ll be there on May 20th. Maybe you can be too?