'Soli Deo Gloria': Not your average music camp - The MasterWorks Festival, Winona Lake, Indiana

National Review, Sept 2, 2002 by Jay Nordlinger

In America, of course, there's a summer camp for everything, and everyone. Vegan canoeing and computing? No problem. There's a great variety of music camps, too, from swanky ones like Tanglewood and Aspen to Bob's Bugle Bash, down by the creek. Unique among these is The MasterWorks Festival, in Winona Lake, Ind. It is a music camp for Christians, featuring Bible study and "Christian fellowship," along with normal musical activities. This is a peculiar slice of American musical life, and of American religious life, and of America itself.

You might think that this camp would be rather rinky-dink, musically -- more Jim and Tammy Faye than Tanglewood. You would be wrong. Don't be embarrassed, however, because even some of the students shared this belief. David Bridges, a brass player from the Cincinnati Conservatory, says, "When I first heard about this Christian music festival, I was very skeptical. I figured it would be a bunch of nice, sweet people, singing hymns and having praise and worship." But he found, to his wonder and delight, that the place is top-notch. So do others.

MasterWorks attracts both top students and top faculty (and the two usually go together, the world over). Some of the most notable performers and teachers in the world participate in the camp, "outing" themselves as earnest Christians, in a way, and giving young people examples to follow. Letting them know that they're not alone. Midori, the violinist (just one name, please), has been there. Christopher Parkening, the guitarist, is a favorite. And then you have John Nelson, the conductor, Philip Smith, principal trumpet for the New York Philharmonic, and Lawrence Dutton, violist for the Emerson String Quartet. The conductor Jahja Ling has visited there, testifying about the Christian experience in China (as well as leading the orchestra). Stephen Clapp, dean of the Juilliard School -- a mighty secular position -- teaches there. Other faculty come from most of the major orchestras and conservatories in the country, and also from such institutions as the American Ballet Theater (MasterWorks branches beyond music, into dance and drama).

All involved seem to have a sense of being at home, of completeness. As Delta David Gier, assistant conductor for the New York Philharmonic, puts it, "The fusion of our two great concerns, music and faith, finds full expression [at the camp]." More than one camper speaks of not being "on the fringe," but in a central place, among the like-minded. Rebekah Bayles, a theater student from Virginia, says, "The people around me are so open and free -- I don't feel like I have to be anything other than what I am. No one is looking at me with judgmental eyes." Over and over, campers give some variation of, "I wasn't quite sure that real musicians could be real Christians, or that real Christians could be true musicians. But now I see it all around me."

Patrick Kavanaugh is the camp's director, and well familiar with this phenomenon. "Imagine," he says, "that you're a high-school violinist [of the religious, churchy sort]. You have two lives. You have your church friends -- who don't know a thing about music, couldn't care less about it, and may look with suspicion on it -- and you have your youth-orchestra friends, who couldn't care less about your religion, unless they think it's kooky or weird. But here, the two sides come together, mingling, integrated." Besides which, our violinist may share a stand in the orchestra with a member of, say, the Boston Symphony -- and that violinist leaves the camp newly fortified about the future.

The MasterWorks Festival is an offshoot of the Christian Performing Artists' Fellowship, or CPAF. If that sounds like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, it is. Kavanaugh -- who is also head of CPAF -- says, "We're very similar, and good friends. We follow an amazingly similar strategy." Kavanaugh, his wife Barbara (a cellist), and some of their friends founded CPAF in 1984, intending it as a "ministry" to the performing-arts world, which they thought was sorely in need of it. They started small, finding members and helpers through word-of-mouth, and have grown considerably. CPAF now has over 1,000 members, with chapters in about 50 music schools, 30 orchestras, and various opera companies and other outfits. Members belong to some 50 different denominations. "Recruiting" consists essentially of tacking a sheet on a bulletin board -- if the relevant institution will permit it -- saying, "Christian fellowship, Tuesday at 4. Y'all come."

And, in perhaps surprising numbers, they do. People seeking this kind of activity and company come out of the woodwork. CPAF may not be well known to the world at large, but, as Kavanaugh says -- not boastfully - - "If you're a classical musician and you're a Christian, you knknow about us." Christians of the CPAF sort are far from a majority in the performing arts -- that's part of why they want to join. But they wouldn't fit into a phone booth either. In fact, they could get up a pretty good orchestra, opera company, dance troupe, camp -- and they do.