Heart's Ease

Our age owes Sir John Tavener deep gratitude. His works cross both cultural and disciplinary boundaries. He illustrated how to deal with intense suffering and felt deeply for the suffering of the world. He stands as an icon representing a view of artistic expression as a way of generating hope and transcendence.

In Tavener's thinking, spirituality was closely tied to wellbeing and healing and this book considers the spiritual encounters that brought him 'heart's ease' and the communication of that experience to performers and listeners through his composition. The contributors to this book include scholars, musicians, theologians, medical practitioners, informed listeners and practitioners in religious traditions. It includes case study material, empirical studies, philosophical, theological and theoretical contributions along with accounts from lived experience of the spirituality generated by Tavener's music. This is set in the context of a world that sees spirituality sometimes coupled and sometimes uncoupled from religion.

The pattern of the book is an alternation between interludes and chapters illuminating different facets of the crystal of Tavener's creative work and the spirituality and 'heart's ease' it can offer.

Auteur

The Rev. Professor June Boyce-Tillman MBE, PhD, MA, LRAM, FRSA read music at Oxford University and is Professor Emerita of Applied Music at the University of Winchester and Extra-ordinary Professor at North West University, South Africa. She has published widely on music education and spirituality and is editing the series on Music and Spirituality for Peter Lang.

Associate Professor Anne-Marie Forbes PhD, MMus, MA, BMus, FRSPH leads the interdisciplinary programmes in Creative Arts and Health at the University of Tasmania. She has published widely in historical musicology, focussing on twentieth-century British and Australian music, sacred music and performativity.