A composer's reputation is dependent on much more than his talent and inspiration. After his death, when he can no longer influence public perception directly, his critics and admirers shape that perception for him. In the introduction to his magisterial biography of Felix Mendelssohn, R. Larry Todd illustrates how such factors as anti-Semitism and anti-Victorianism can change perceptions of a composer's music in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Kate Hevner Mueller's study of the changing repertoires of American symphony orchestras demonstrates that popularity with conductors and audiences is by no means stable over time. Few composers vacillated more strongly between adulation and excoriation than MacDowell, and his meteoric rise and subsequent fall shed light on American musical aspirations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To set the stage for the essays in this collection, it will be useful to consider the reception history of his works from his period of greatest fame to his 150th birthday in 2010.

Born in 1860 in New York City, MacDowell grew up in a Quaker family and pursued his early music studies with teachers from Latin America. MacDowell moved to Europe as a fifteen-year old to further his musical training, spending the next twelve years in France and Germany first as a student and then as a young professional. Initially he pursued a career as a concert pianist, but during his last four years in Germany, his time was devoted almost entirely to composition. In addition to numerous piano works, he published his first orchestral works at this time. In the summer of 1888, he and his wife Marian moved to Boston, where he reactivated his performing career, accepted students in piano and composition, and pursued his dream of achieving fame as a composer.

The timing of his return home could not have been better. MacDowell had published a substantial number of piano, vocal, and orchestral works with major German publishing firms, and his music had been played by European orchestras. MacDowell's family friend Teresa Carreño was also influential in bringing his music before the public. To American concert promoters, MacDowell was ideal—a native-born American whose works had already been given the stamp of European approval.

On Wednesday, February 3, 1904, the Evening Post broke the story that Edward MacDowell was abruptly resigning from his position as the head of the music department at Columbia University, citing his inability to “obtain the reorganization of work which he thinks necessary.” The story, which ran with bold headlines on the front page of the evening paper, included a transcript of an interview with MacDowell, which had presumably taken place earlier that day. In the interview, MacDowell faulted the University administration, specifically President Nicholas Murray Butler, for refusing to put into effect his ideas for developing a Fine Arts division at Columbia. He called the study of the fine arts at the University “poor” and lamented that the majority of graduates from the school were not even aware what constituted the fine arts. He declined to speak further on the subject until his resignation and a detailed report of his criticisms could be formally presented to the Board of Trustees. Butler, however, did not seem interested in the composer's report. “Professor MacDowell's declarations,” the article reported, “were laid before President Butler this afternoon…. The President declared that he did not consider them important, and had nothing to say.” The story quickly spread from coast to coast: Butler and Columbia were put on the defensive, and in turn, MacDowell was forced to respond repeatedly in the press. “The Columbia Wars,” as some would later refer to the newspaper sparring, continued for weeks and negatively impacted both MacDowell's and the University's images. The controversy also reignited a debate concerning music in university curricula, offering an important glimpse into the development of music as an academic subject.

Eight years earlier, in 1896, MacDowell had been appointed the first professor of music at Columbia University. At the time of the appointment, the university lauded him as “the greatest musical genius this country has produced.” That spring, MacDowell began building the music program, designing courses in history, theory, and composition as well as establishing the University Orchestra, directing multiple choral ensembles, and undertaking other administrative tasks.

The first few years of the 1970s turned out to be some of the most turbulent years of my time at the Eastman School, and I was deeply involved. The fiftieth year of the founding of the Eastman School was to be celebrated during the 1971-72 season. In early 1970, Walter Hendl called me and asked me to have lunch with him. As always it was a very pleasant and fruitful meeting of the two of us. He wished to discuss his plans for the anniversary season, and I was flattered that he wanted my opinion. First of all he suggested that the composi¬tion department come up with a list of composers to commission to write new works to be performed during the year by all of our ensembles. Providing some ideas himself. Then he told me that during that season he was going to conduct all the orchestral concerts. The commissioning project was the easiest to realize for two reasons: one, all the composers on the Eastman faculty, including those who were not in the composition department itself, would be commissioned, and he had some suggestions as to the kind of works he would like to see cre¬ated for the project. The other reason Hendl received great support for his suggestions was that his ideas of composers to commission outside the school were excellent.

I went back to my colleagues, and we divided up the list of works that Hendl wanted created for the anniversary, we divided them up between us and then gave the non-composition faculty members a chance to pick what they wanted to contribute. All of this went very smoothly and in the pro¬cess I picked the opportunity to write an organ concerto for my dear friend and colleague David Craighead and the Eastman Philharmonia. Many fa¬mous and not so famous outside composers were commissioned, Ameri-cans as well as European composers. Among the Americans were William Schuman, Peter Mennin, Vincent Persichetti, and Ned Rorem; among the Europeans, the most renowned one was Krzysztof Penderecki who was asked to write a work for harpsichord and orchestra. This work turned out to be the Partita, written especially for the anniversary and was to be pre miered by Felicja Blumental, a woman of Polish descent, but who made her reputation in North America and in Brazil.

The two weeks in Great Barrington changed my life in a much more profound way: I fell madly in love with that beautiful blond young woman with whom I had coffee my first day at camp. Her name was Carol Stalker. She came from Rochester, New York and had the ambition of becoming one of the first female rabbis, along with two other of her friends. She had one more semester at the University of Michigan and after that was going to apply to Hebrew Union Col¬lege. There had been a discussion about women rabbis in those days but the actuality of their ordination was still a few years off. Carol had just broken off with a young man of similar ambitions at Michigan. So this was a propitious time for me to come into her life. We had long talks about marriage, children and their education, philosophy of life and happiness, and just about anything else one could wish to discuss. By the time the camp was over, after our nightly meetings after curfew, we had decided to get married. Though the musical por¬tion of the camp may not have been all I wished for, the change in my marital status certainly was significant. When we left the camp in Great Barrington, I headed right away to MacDowell while Carol went to another Youth Group Camp in Zionsville, Indiana. We agreed to meet in New York City after two weeks, and I promised to pick her up at the Zionsville camp and take her to Rochester so I could meet her family

With renewed vigor and filled with the most romantic spirit, I arrived in Peterborough and threw myself into the work of writing the opera. I finished the entire vocal score in four weeks, then jumped into the car and drove all the way to Indiana. We had a joyous reunion and together drove to Rochester. Though my reception by her parents was rather cool, we did not care and de¬cided to set the date for our wedding for Valentine's Day, 1960. While I drove back to Dallas, Carol went back to Ann Arbor to finish school. When I arrived back in Dallas, the shock of the forthcoming marriage of what was until then a confirmed bachelor music director was resounding.

The outbreak of the Liberian civil war

As noted in the previous chapter, the Liberian Civil War broke out on 24 December 1989 when Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) forces invaded Liberia through Nimba County from neighbouring Côte d'Ivoire. Finally, the contradictions that had existed in Liberian society right from its inception, through to the period of attempted modernization, to the years when Doe's authoritarian hold on the state appeared to have choked the remnants of statehood, unravelled. The ‘dualistic’ heritage and nature of the Liberian state – in terms of the fundamental divide between the indigenes and settlers, the dualistic land tenure and marriage laws systems, underscored by a history in which local people had been governed by customary laws while the settlers were governed by ‘Liberian law’ – appeared to have caught up with the country and would lead to dire consequences for the people of Liberia in particular and West Africa in general.

Charles Taylor started a brutal civil war that would span over a decade and destabilize the entire West African region, with the support of President Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso, President Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Côte d'Ivoire, and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. Capitalizing on the animosity that was already nursed by the Gios and Manos of Nimba County towards the Doe regime, following the killing of Quiwonkpa and many people of Nimba County in the reprisal attacks that followed Quiwonkpa's November 1985 failed coup, Charles Taylor recruited 120 men from Nimba County, who were eventually trained in Libya (Sawyer, 1992: 25). Along with providing training for the initial NPFL troops, Libya also supplied arms (Kieh, 1992: 132).

Libya's rationale for becoming involved in the conflict included a perception of Doe as a neo-colonial puppet and, following the rejection of several overtures made to Doe by Gaddafi to join the anti-America group, an opportunity to retaliate for Doe's rebuff presented itself in Taylor's NPFL. The conflict was also an opportunity for Libya to challenge and retaliate against Nigeria, based on Libya's perception that the former was its principal rival for pre-eminence in Africa and that Nigeria had supported the USA's backing of Chad during the expulsion of Libyan dissidents from Chad (Kieh, 1992: 132).

The Liberian diaspora and conflict

Why is the diaspora so crucial to originating, sustaining and ending conflicts? Have their widely criticized roles in conflicts, as supporters of insurgencies in their homelands, and as ‘long-distance nationalists’ (Anderson, 1998), on the one hand, and as peace activists, peacemakers and initiators of peace processes, on the other, been made possible by virtue of the distance between them and theatres of conflict in their homelands? To what extent are they used as proxies by host states to prosecute conflicts in their homelands? And to what extent have the ethnic and filial relations between populations in conflict, and their ethnic kinsmen, across borders mattered? Does this affinity pose a threat to state sovereignty and a key characteristic of the Weberian state – the monopoly of the use of force? These are some of the questions that readily come to mind when attempting to examine the role of the diaspora in conflicts. While it is not possible to provide answers to all of these pertinent questions, an attempt is made below to address the most relevant ones that pertain to this research and help shed further light on the Liberian diaspora's role in the fourteen-year civil conflict.

It is widely acknowledged that the diaspora has continually played a critical role in conflicts across the world. What is at contention is whether these roles are crucial to the extent that they are major determinants to continued conflict or its resurgence (Duffield, 2001; Collier, 2003; Collier and Hoeffler, 2004), or that their roles have been over-emphasized or exaggerated (Ballentine, 2003; Berdal, 2005). Østergaard-Nielsen (2006) observes that there are two main polarized views in studies of diasporas and conflict. On one hand is the dark side, which portrays diasporas as ‘long -distance nationalists’ that may perpetuate conflict through political and economic support at no risk to themselves, thereby portraying the diaspora as part of the problem, and not the solution. On the other hand, it highlights the commitment of the diaspora and exiled groups to non-violent conflict resolution, with the potential to spearhead democratization and post-conflict reconstruction processes in the home states (Østergaard-Nielsen, 2006: 1).

While these views largely capture the broad spectrum of current discourse, they do not represent the entire picture, as there is a ‘middle ground’, which highlights both the positive and negative aspects of the discourse.

The music of the synagogue is at once the oldest and the newest of all the li¬turgical traditions belonging to the major religious groups of our day. It is the earliest in that there is tradition recorded in the Bible from ancient times, and the most modern because of the hiatus that was imposed upon its growth and development from those early times to the Enlightenment at the end of the eighteenth century. This essay will outline parts of the earlier history of the music of the synagogue as well as provide an overview of the music of the American synagogue in greater detail.

Though the Bible is full of references to music and musical events in con¬nection with the Temple worship, we do not know what this music sounded like, since the ancient Israelites never developed a separate musical notation system. It is true that the Hebrew Bible has a system of musical accents on each word, yet it is a mystery to us regarding the actual sound of each of these accents. These accents or neumes are called Ta'amim and consist of circles, dashes, and other small configurations. Since the original Hebrew was written without vow¬els, the Ta'amim designate not only the word accent but often clarify its actual meaning when this is obscured by the missing vowels.

The problems today in the music for the synagogue begin with the fact that the system of musical accents, also sometimes referred to as the trope, was passed down through the ages by word of mouth. According to Eric Werner in a fascinating book entitled The Sacred Bridge, the music closest to the ancient Temple chant may be found in the chants of the Armenian Church. Because of its longevity and its isolation, the Armenian Church protected and codified its chants as far back as the third century. This was the historical period during which the Armenians converted from Judaism to Christianity.

From the time of the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70, we have the growth of the synagogue as a substitute for the Temple worship as well as for the Temple sacrifices. In addition, prayer services in the synagogues were named after the sacrifices offered at precise times in the ancient Temple. The services were entitled morning prayer (Shacharit), afternoon prayer (Minsha), and evening prayers (Maaviv).

By the summer of 1905, it was clear that Edward MacDowell was seriously ill. In July he signed over power of attorney to his wife Marian. He worried increasingly about the fate of their beloved farm in Peterborough, New Hampshire. For some time he had been thinking about inviting other creative artists to work there, so that they might enjoy the same ideal working conditions that had inspired his own best work. He envisioned a smaller-scale American Academy, like the one in Rome recently founded by his colleague, architect Charles McKim.

Now facing his mortality, MacDowell obsessed over this idea. Marian MacDowell consoled her husband with the promise that she would make it happen. She would turn their home into a creative retreat, where artists could work undisturbed in a community of their peers. She wasted no time turning her intentions into action.

In the fall of 1905 a group of MacDowell's former students and supporters met in New York City to form the MacDowell Club of New York, which would become a vibrant force in the cultural life of the city. At its inaugural meeting on October 29, Marian MacDowell laid out her plan to offer their Peterborough property to the organization. The following year the Mendelssohn Glee Club, which MacDowell had directed from 1896 to 1898, started a fund to help pay for the care of the ailing composer. From May 1906 until the composer's death in January 1908, a specially appointed committee solicited donations from around the country. The Edward MacDowell Fund of the Mendelssohn Glee Club paid Marian a small monthly stipend and covered other expenses, including Edward's funeral costs. When the fund was closed in March 1908, the remaining balance of close to $30,000 was offered to Marian. She refused to accept it for herself, insisting it be used to support the colony.

In 1907, the MacDowell Club of New York and the Mendelssohn Glee Club joined forces to establish the Edward MacDowell Memorial Association for the purpose of taking legal possession of the MacDowells’ Peterborough property and administering the funds to support it. “I was wise enough to realize that there had to be something tangible for people to have [in] back of a venture so that they could believe in what we were trying to do,” Marian said.

The conundrum surrounding what determines the success or failure of a peace process persists. Why do some peace efforts fail while others succeed? Is there a ‘luck’ element, or can the success of some peace efforts be traced to certain present or missing elements? Can peace process success be attributed to the choice of mediator, the parties’ desire to embrace a peaceful resolution of conflict as a result of a ‘mutually hurting stalemate’ (Zartman, 1980, sudden changes in the conflict dynamics, or the existence of a post-conflict guarantor or overseer of the implementation of the peace agreement (Walter, 2002)? Could the magic be found in the almost complete annihilation of one belligerent by another, prompting the losing side to seek a peaceful way out of conflict to ‘save face’? Is success guaranteed by the absence or containment of spoilers? The issue begs more questions than could be answered even if a lifetime were to be dedicated to the subject.

While a number of the factors highlighted above, such as the personality of the mediator, the change in conflict dynamics and a willingness of the conflict parties to embrace peace (for one reason or the other), could contribute to a successful peace process, what delivers success is likely to be a combination of several factors, some of which I have already identified.

This book has highlighted the importance of the active involvement of non-state, non-armed stakeholders in the peace efforts of conflict societies. There has been particular focus on the politics of the involvement of religious and diaspora actors in the Liberian peace process. At the beginning of this book, I had reason to suspect that the likely main rationale for engaging the Liberian peace process for both religious and diaspora actors was altruism. After all, both actors constitute what we know to be ‘good civil society’. My findings, however, reveal that while altruistic intentions were a factor, especially for religious actors, it was not exactly the case for the Liberian diaspora. While both groups had elements of altruism influencing their decision to engage in the peace process, especially in the case of organized religion, there were other motivating factors for the organized diaspora, under the aegis of the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas (ULAA), the USA-based umbrella body for diaspora Liberians in North America.

Ever since I entered college teaching in Texas, I tried to get a Guggenheim Fel¬lowship in order to have some extended time to compose. In 1973-74, I had so many commissions that I was hoping that my ninth attempt at procuring such a fellowship would pay off. It did! And I decided to ask for a semester's leave beginning after the fall semester of 1974.

The planning for the leave could not begin right away because of a won¬derful family event that was to occur in September. Debbie was to have her BatMitzvah in the middle of that month. At that time we had a cantor at Temple B'rith Kodesh by the name of Richard Allen, who took great pains to teach the Bar and Bat Mitzvah children how to interpret the “trop” (biblical cantillation) from the actual musical signs found in the Hebrew text of the Bible. This gave them the knowledge of being able to chant any passage from the Torah or the Prophets at sight. (Luckily, Richard was still the cantor when Naomi was Bat Mitzvah age, and she also learned this great skill for the chanting of her portion.)The whole family, including my mother, came to Rochester to be present and we had a memorable time celebrating Debbie's big day and her wonderful rendering of the ritual and the portion assigned for that particular Sabbath. After our great festivities, we prepared for the leave.

Since the Guggenheim Fellowship is given so that you remove yourself from your usual duties, we decided to go to Europe to get away from it all. One of the main reasons for choosing Vienna over other locations was the cultural atmosphere, and the fact that H. C. Robbins Landon, my good friend, lived there. He had always wanted me to spend some time in Vienna with him. When I wrote to him to ask his help with housing, schooling for the girls, and other matters, he immediately answered that he would do all he can to prepare our stay, but that he would be taking off the entire first part of 1975 to teach in the United States and in England. I was very disappointed, but was happy that he was willing to help us getting situated.

Christianity in Liberia

The history of the Church in Liberia intertwines with that of the Liberian state and vice versa. Indeed, Browne's (1994: 4) description of the nature of the relationship between the Liberian state and Christianity as ‘coeval’ is apt. The American Colonization Society (ACS) was the medium used to found Liberia by facilitating the repatriation of freed Black American slaves to Africa. Apart from its civilizing and ‘Christianization’ objective, it was also, in Clay's words, ‘rid our country of a useless and pernicious, if not dangerous portion of its population…’ (Ciment, 2013: 9, 11). Indeed, it is believed that the first Liberian church was founded on board the ship bearing the first set of freed slaves to settle in Liberia in 1822 (Gifford, 1993; Browne, 1994). Gershoni (2008) notes that one of the core objectives of the ACS was to make Liberia a prototype of a Western Christian society that would disseminate Christian and Western values among Africans, via the establishment of missionary schools that would spread Christian values and ideals (Gershoni, 2008: 414–15).

Also on Liberia's Christian background, Lartey notes that:

As I enter the ninetieth year of my life, I recall my long and very eventful biog¬raphy through the stories gathered in this book. Of course I cannot predict how much longer this life will last, but I want to end with some closing and summa¬rizing thoughts. First of all, I would like to explain why I call this memoir Build¬ing Bridges with Music. All my life I have tried to be a bridge builder whenever I have encountered a situation where reconciliation or any other form of under¬standing is required. This has greatly influenced many of my most important decisions. Furthermore, I have always tried to live every moment of my life as fully as possible and hope to continue this lifestyle until the end. (That's why the poem cited at the beginning of the stories of my life as a motto has meant so much to me.) I have been extremely fortunate during those more than eighty-eight years, as can be seen from the many stories related in my narrative.It seems that every episode has presented opportunities that were unimaginable before these certain doors were opened to me. Many people have contributed toward this fortunate outcome and stood by me with great support so very often. If I were to mention them all I am positive that I would leave out too many.

However, I want to summarize by mentioning some people and events that have greatly helped shape my life and make it meaningful. First, I must mention my father who was such a strong role model: a man of extraordinary discipline and courage who faced extreme adversity without ever losing his will to live, to love, and to create. And then my mother, who personifies to me the proverbial “woman of valor,” taught both my sister and me how to get along with people, and emphasized the importance of family. She helped to foster a close relationship between my sister and her family and mine that has endured throughout these years. For this I am particularly grateful. Here I also want to acknowledge my very demanding teachers, who inspired me and gave me the tools for my creative work.

Now at the end of my formal teaching career, I can safely say that my position at Eastman and then at Juilliard added up to the two best jobs anyone could ever hope to have. I have dealt with hundreds of students who went on to excellent positions in the music world. At Eastman, and then at Juilliard, I have had the privilege of instructing and mentoring students whose lives I hope have been enriched by our work together. Milton Babbitt once said to me: “You know, Sam, I think we have had more composition students than any other two com¬posers in history. If they have not studied with me, I am sure they have studied with you.”

Besides the many wonderful things that have happened to me since 1990 there have been some disappointments that I would like to discuss since they have affected me in certain ways. I would like to mention four of these simply to get them off my chest and because I have learned important lessons from these setbacks.

The first instance I want to mention was probably the strangest for me. After teaching at Brigham Young University, I received an inquiry from Jerry Ottley, the director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, asking if I were interested in writ¬ing an anthem for them for choir and organ. To me the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has always been one of the finest choirs in the world, and I immediately answered Jerry that it would be the greatest pleasure for me to write such a work for him. He told me that the choir's committee would first of all have to approve of the text and then, after I had written it, that committee would have to approve the work itself. I thought that these were reasonable requests and put together some of my favorite Bible verses and added a few verses written by Yehudah Halevy, a Jewish poet from the Middle Ages. I sent the text to Salt Lake City and within a few days heard from Jerry that the committee loved the text; I should go ahead and set it. I did so and wrote a work with a prominent organ part since the organ as well as the organist of the Tabernacle were superb.