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Tribute to Kay GardenerA
Tribute to Kay GardenerIt is with great sadness that we report the passing of Kay Gardner, a pioneer musician who contributed so much to the advancement of feminist and lesbian music.
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Many musicians, music lovers, pagans, feminists and lesbians have their memories of Kay Gardner and how she inspired their lives and music....as do I.I thrilled when I first heard her music while coming out in the late 1970s. Her playful flute backgrounds to the music of Alix Dobkin on Lavender Jane made me giggle. Her own soulful meditations on Mooncircles provided my first glimpses into the profound nature of women's spirituality. I'm sure its one of the reasons I found my path to the goddess. Kay had also been the founder and conductor of the New England Women's Symphony who produced one album of orchestral music by women. I had been a music major at a women's college but in no time during those years had women as musicians or composers been held up to us as role models. It was Kay's work years later that opened these doors of awareness for me in the realm of Western classical music.
My life intersected with Kay's during the 1980s. I first had the opportunity to meet and live with her at a workshop sponsored by a mutual friend. It was just around the time that Rainbow Path was released. Kay was offering workshops on Music as Medicine and promoting the healing qualities of music. Though I had previous experiences with music as meditation, her work inspired and moved me at much deeper level. Her ability as a teacher combined with the powerful message conveyed in the Rainbow Path made this one of the few learning experiences I actually still remember! It made my understanding of modes and modalities, chakras, droning, and international musical traditions much richer.
During that time, I had the opportunity of being her opening act for a concert on the Cape (Cape Cod, Massachusetts). As I performed, I was both surprised and honored as Kay came from the back of the stage and improvised a flute background to one of the songs I played. A few years later, when she was performing at Bloodroot Feminist Vegetarian Restaurant and Bookstore in Bridgeport, CT, she invited me to play the song once again while she provided the background. These experiences added me to the long list of musicians whose work she both inspired and supported. So many women have been moved in their work as musicians due to Kay's kindness and encouragement.
When I moved to Minnesota, I unfortunately lost touch with Kay. However, I was always grateful and excited to get her newest recordings. Kay's work fortunately did get some air play in the Twin Cities because of my efforts on the Lesbian Power Authority (KFAI-FM) and those of Catherine Azora-Minda (Womenfolk, KFAI). Kay's music often formed the cornerstone of the special shows I did marking the Shabbats (especially those from Ouroboros). Perhaps my all time favorite piece of Kay's is The Greenwood (Heart Chakra) from the Rainbow Path. In her healing workshops, Kay discussed this piece as being written in Mixolydian mode which she had claimed as the Lesbian Mode. This mode has somewhat unusual and open features to its scale (a raised fourth -- tritone) thus creating an open and joyful sound. In her book Sounding the Inner Landscape (now out-of-print, but selection are available in recording), Kay states this mode has been attributed to the first known lesbian musician, Sappho of Lesbos.
I recently returned to the East Coast and one of the things on my "to do" list was to rekindle my connection to Kay and to visit her in Maine. Unfortunately, this will now not happen. Her death came as a complete shock as it did to all of us in the large community of musicians, feminists, pagans and lesbians she helped to create. I'm only grateful that her passing was so peaceful. From this too I have learned how precious our days are and it has reminded me (once again) to make the most of them. Thank you Kay for all that you have given me -- more than I can express and perhaps more than I know. Blessed Be.
-- Mev Miller
(Mev has worked at Amazon for the past nine years and was the programmer for Lesbian Power Authority on KFAI radio. Though she just recently moved to Rhode Island, she still maintains Amazon's website.)
By Roxanne Moore Saucier,
Of the BANGOR
DAILY NEWS Staff
Last updated: Friday, August 30, 2002
BANGOR -- Two weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, composer Kay Gardner walked into the offices of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra with a prelude titled "Lament for Thousands."
After hearing of Gardner's sudden death this week, symphony officials decided to schedule Gardner's work for the orchestra's season-opening concert Oct. 13 at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono.
Gardner, believed to be in her early 60s, died of a heart attack Wednesday in Bangor.
She was a multifaceted musician, a pianist, flutist and conductor who performed in 46 states and various countries.
More than 20 years ago, she sued the Bangor Symphony, unsuccessfully, for sex discrimination after she had applied for a conducting position and learned that a questionnaire was circulated among orchestra members, asking how they felt about working with a female conductor.
But in 2000, she was the guest conductor for a 40-member orchestra of women from the Bangor Symphony -- playing a repertoire written by women.
Gardner also was known for her belief in the healing power of music. She was ordained a priestess in the Fellowship of Isis and founded the Temple of the Feminine Divine in Bangor.
But she may well be best remembered in Maine for the voice she gave to musicians, both trained and untrained.
Gardner was the heartbeat of Women with Wings, a singing circle open to all comers that has met Thursday evenings for the past nine years at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Park Street.
She was also a force for celebrating the spirit -- and the accomplishments -- of women.
"Working with Kay was one of the highlights of my experience with the BSO," said Executive Director Susan Jonason. When she told Gardner about the plan to do a concert written by women, played by women, "she was so excited."
"All of a sudden, she's sort of educating me about women and music," Jonason recalled. "I felt like I was levitating." Last year, she added, Gardner had come into the office with no expectations about the new piece she had written, knowing the BSO was in the middle of a conductor search. Now the orchestra will play her work, in tribute to the composer as well as to the subjects of the music.
Kay Louise Gardner was born on Long Island, N.Y., and studied music at the University of Michigan and at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She performed in coffeehouses in California in the early 1960s and, in 1972, helped found a feminist and openly lesbian women's band, Lavender Jane.
By the 1980s, she was living and composing on Deer Isle, and by the 1990s was serving as music director at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bangor.
Members of the group Women with Wings were especially saddened Thursday.
"None of us are professional musicians," said Maryann Ingalls, who has belonged to Wings for six years. "What Kay brought to us was a confidence that we could sing. Her belief in the power of voice, anyone's, was so affirming."
Despite extensive experience touring and recording with professionals, Gardner said she actually preferred working with diverse people who didn't have training.
"They have no hang-ups or preconceptions," she said during a 1980 interview with the Bangor Daily News. "They are open. No one has told them how they must react to what they hear. ... We made music together."
Wings members learn songs principally by listening to one another -- no books or sheet music. The only guidance came from Gardner, occasionally raising and lowering one hand in small steps to give an idea of the direction of the music.
"We had to learn by ear, so we heard better," Ingalls explained. "It was a wonderful space to experiment -- trying out harmony."
In fact, despite Gardner's own talents as a composer -- from the brief "Brigid, Goddess of Healing," to the yuletide pageant "Lucina's Light" -- she encouraged the singers to write their own songs and bring them to the circle to share.
Women with Wings has just recorded its first professionally produced CD for Ladyslipper, "Hand to Hand & Heart to Heart," comprising 26 songs written by the members. A booklet also is being published.
The group has given performances from the Michigan Women's Music Festival to the "Beautiful Project" at the University of Maine.
Gardner herself had performed her own works from Carnegie Hall to Mexico to Thailand. Her books include "Sounding the Inner Landscape: Music as Medicine," work that also served as the basis of a six-cassette set. Among her honors were an honorary doctorate and the Maryann Hartman Award from the University of Maine.
An ordained priestess in the Fellowship of Isis, Gardner was a member of Bangor Area Clergy Fellowship. She led tours to goddess sites in Great Britain, and many of the Women with Wings songs reflected her reverence for earth, fire, air and water. But she never imposed her own identity on the group, which includes women of many denominations and beliefs.
"Kay was immensely generous of spirit," Ingalls said.
Ingalls recalled wondering whether she'd be allowed to take part in a concert scheduled just four weeks after she'd joined Wings. "You're a member," Gardner told her emphatically.
"I don't know what we're going to do without her," Ingalls said Thursday. Yet, she recalled clearly what Gardner always said, spiritedly, to the excited singers just moments before a performance: "What do we want to remember? Have fun!"
Women with Wings planned to meet for its usual singing circle Thursday evening. The group has been named the honorary chairwoman for the Sept. 14 Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Race for the Cure in Bangor.
Gardner is survived by two daughters, Juliana Smith of Delaware and Jenifer Wilson Smith of Bangor; her partner, Colleen Fitzgerald of Bangor; her mother, Enez Gardner of California; one brother; and two grandchildren.
Calling hours will be 2-5 p.m. Saturday at Brookings-Smith Funeral Home, 133 Center St. Services will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 120 Park St., with a potluck meal afterward.
Donations in Kay's memory can be sent to Temple of the Feminine Divine, PO Box 602, Bangor ME 04401.
Dear Beloved Kay,
Less than an hour ago I received a call from our dear friend Ruth Barrett. My heart weeps learning of your Soul passing into the realm of Divine Glorious Spirit. I am saddened in a bitter sweet way. I recall all the moments we shared till recently at Michfest, visiting with you, Ruth, Coco and Falcon, Denslow, Lynn and others. You, me and Ruth together at the Opening Ceremony, and you with your Beloved Coco - Singing in Sacred Circle with your workshop participants, Barb, Amy and the Drumsong Orchestra.
Thank you Kay for your brilliance, your healing music, your teachings, your wisdom, your friendship and sisterhood. Thank you for your humility, humor and playfulness. Thank you for all the gifts you have given to all beings and especially those gifts of the Goddess for womyn. And for reminding and teaching us that music heals.
I have lit a Candle on my Altar, I gathered to my Altar your books, cassettes, and photos in your honor, recognition of your Light. I'm listening to "A Rainbow Path" as I weep with Mimi, we celebrate your life and I, my blessing to have walked with you in this life time.
Thank you Kay for mentoring and inspiring my Sacred artistry in producing my recordings ShapeShifters and Dance The Spiral Dance. And thank you Kay Gardner for modeling the many possibilities and potentialities of being and becoming a Great Womyn in America and on this Blessed Earth!
The very last time I saw, felt and shared your vibration and energy was at the closing Candlelight Concert at Michfest 2002, you with your sweet flute song in procession, the night the ball of light in the sky arched over all who gathered to in gratitude of those how came before us, those who are with us and to say farewell and Good Night...
Good Night my dear Kay Gardner, Many Blessings on your Soul journey, I love you and I'll see You on the Sacred Path!
In Divine Spirit and Eternal Love, Ase and Blessed Be, Ubaka
"When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the Service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid" - - - Audre Lorde
Kay Gardner on Ladyslipper's Website
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