Who is MWC?

Councils

Networks & Projects

News & Testimony

Publications

World Assembly: Africa 2003

World Directory

Site Map

'Important to Go to Zimbabwe,' Says 80-year-old Musician

Singing will be at the centre of worship at the Mennonite World Conference Assembly in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, in August. Among worshippers will be an enthusiastic octogenarian from Goshen, Indiana (USA).

Mary K. Oyer, a church music specialist, has studied international music for decades and she has played a key role in broadening worship music repertoire to include songs from around the world.

Oyer has been to Zimbabwe several times, trips she says were "so instructive to me." There is no wavering in her resolve to go back this year for Africa 2003 in support of the Zimbabwean people, she says. "It is important to go to give us [Westerners] some feel for what they live with."

In addition to international worship songs, this Assembly will have a choir with members from around the world to lead congregational singing. Prominent in worship and in performance will be the rhythms and melodies of Africa.

African music is aural, explains Oyer. It's full of symbolism and complex rhythms that call the body to move. One experiences so much more when the entire body is involved than "in learning from a book that is deaf and dumb," she quips.

"It's not evil to move a little," says Oyer, who confesses that she used to have rigid ideas about what music was appropriate for worship. "I'm not so absolute anymore. Studying African music enlarged greatly my understanding...and opened new ideas about worship. We can't judge what is right or wrong. It's a matter of personal taste." If others find different music meaningful, she adds, we need to find out why.

Oyer has studied African music for more than 30 years and she has lived there for a total of five years, beginning in 1969 when she received a grant from a California university (U.S.A.) to study visual arts and music in Africa. Since then, she has spent time between school years and some longer periods in 12 different countries, including Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria, Congo, Uganda, Malawi and Zambia.

Every country has its own kind of music as well as different instruments, from the drums of West Africa and the Congo to the mbira of the Shona tribe in Zimbabwe, Oyer notes. She's learned to produce the mbira's unique sound by snapping its up to 22 metal strips held by a bridge over a flat piece of wood.

In some places, traditional African sounds and rhythms are being reclaimed and encouraged after decades of "trying to get it [worship music] right," as taught by Western missionaries.

"Everything about African music tells about the people." says Oyer. "There is improvisation in music and in life. Small patterns go round and round [like Taizé music] with no concept of prescribed length. 'How do I know when to stop?' is a Western question," she explains. "[African music] reflects a different sense of time without any sense of urgency." For Africans, she adds, the present is strong, the past is rich and there is no future tense beyond a month or so.

The music of Africa is energetic. The AIC (African Initiated Churches), especially, see the body and spirit as one and believe that the Holy Spirit comes when the body is in motion, says Oyer.

Asian music, which she has also studied, is much more cerebral, reflective and introspective. Asians find moving the body hard. Westerners, who focus on harmony, tension and resolution, with less emphasis on rhythm, are somewhere in between, she observes.

"We've imposed our way as right," chides Oyer. "We should try to be learners. But we have to find out what the people are like before we can understand their music."

Oyer will help about 40 North Americans in that quest by co-leading a 26-day African tour in July and August with Zenebe Abebe, who was born in Ethiopia and is now teaching at Goshen College. The tour, an immersion in African music, art, culture and history, will include Ethiopia and Kenya and the Mennonite World Conference Assembly Gathered in Zimbabwe.

But first Oyer will celebrate her 80th birthday, in April, and conduct a music workshop at Indiana's Anderson University and Seminary, one of many seminars that continue to take her to Mennonite and other institutions across North America. In September she will return to Taiwan to teach for a semester at a Presbyterian Theological College and Seminary as she has done for the past several years.

Oyer "retired" in 1987 after a 50-year career as a Music Professor at Goshen College (where she also taught visual arts) and at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana (USA). She has played key roles in preparing The Mennonite Hymnal (1969), several other songbooks for special events, including international books for MWC assemblies. From 1987-89, she managed the project that produced Hymnal: A Worship Book with its rich collection of international songs.

Anabaptists from around the world have been inspired by Oyer's enthusiastic song leading at large meetings like World Conference gatherings in Wichita, Kansas (USA), Winnipeg, Manitoba (Canada) and Calcutta, India. From her broad international experience, she has helped participants learn each other's songs, many of which will be sung from an international songbook planned for Africa 2003.