A Dear John Letter

Did I ever tell you about the time I got a postcard from John Updike? It had to do with the bassoon quartet.

Well, I wrote the piece originally for strings, but the Community Music School of Springfield didn’t have any strings. They did have bassoons. Would that be OK? I was so thrilled they accepted my piece, I thought, well what the heck, viola? bassoon? who cares?

I decided it would be nice to mix things up with some words. That’s my thing, to mix words with music and throw in some pictures if you’ve got ‘em! At that time, I was really enjoying John Updike’s poetry. I hadn’t read any of his famous novels, but his poetry had knocked my socks off , with its easy flow and down-to-earthiness.

Why not use some of his poems, I thought. Then, oops, maybe I should ask him if that’s OK.

Here’s what I wrote to John Updike. (Mr. Updike didn’t seem right, nor did John)

Dear John Updike, 

By way of introduction, I taught your daughter Elizabeth one French class at The Pingree School in 1971 when I was a terrified 21 year old newly-minted French major.
I also played Mary for a St. John'a Beverly Farms Christmas Pageant. My husband was Joseph, my daughter Cecily was baby Jesus.  Need I go on?
After having pursued several interesting careers, I am now concentrating fully on writing music.  I enjoy creating mini music-based theater pieces.
I have written a piece for bassoon quartet (to be performed at Springfield College on March 26), which describes the stages of life, in four two minute bursts - birth, youth, middle age and old age. From the beginning, I pictured a narrative that would accompany the pieces. The bassoon players will be the actors. It will seem as though they are just musing about life in between their performances. May I use your poetry? It is so real, so poignant, so funny, so full of loss and real life.

I hope to hear from you. 

Kate Sullivan (formerly Katy Beane)

Rereading this now, I am amazed that he ever responded. But he did.

Updike’s postcard gave me some courage. I began to try to figure out what I was doing.

I guess I didn’t really think it through, that bassoons aren’t exactly the sound that comes to mind in the sacred space of birth, or death for that matter. OK, maybe youth and rambunctious middle age, but…ah well, bassoons it is.

I never did use any of Updike’s words. I’m sure he’s in up in heaven, very thankful for that. In the end, I decided to intersperse the music with excerpts from my journals about various experiences I’d had in all those departments. Except death, although during the concert, I began to regret the fact that I wasn’t dead.

The excerpts were meant to be sprinkled throughout the four stages. I assumed that was obvious, but before any of the four bassoons could blonk out a note, the reader read through all four journal selections. Straight through the heart beats of birth, the playfulness of youth, the every-which-way of middle age, on to the legato of a peaceful death. As I listened from my pew half way back in the church, I squirmed in my seat, wondering if I should stand up and stop the show, or run out to vomit in the lobby.

When the last death knell was read from my journals, the first bassoon blarted out the heartbeat of a newborn. Gorgeous? Meditative? Not so much.

They called me up amid grand (perhaps more polite and puzzled than grand) applause, for me to accept a lovely bouquet, which I accepted with as much grace as I could muster before slinking back to my seat.

There’s no recording of the concert, thank God, but I do still have my postcard.

Play on!

These players come from WHAT DO YOU HEAR?, a board book I wrote for toddlers and their parents.

I created a video to accompany the book.

And so, the moral of the story is, none of us know what we’re doing, Just keep trying.