Inner Trials: Faith in Community, Community in Art
written by Keith Donaghue
Bahlest Eeble Readings Cycle 19 Fellow
I write this atop a snow-capped mountain in Vermont. Its quiet, except for the birds, and there are few manmade structures in sight, aside from a hand-built teahut. In that hut my friends and I will sit, as we have for years, drinking tea, sharing, listening, building… that intangible network of shared meaning we call community. Though this specific trip was prompted by 2 close friends being told they must leave the country soon (collateral of despotism), we build towards that same meaning: gathered, not hesitating to cherish our time together.
The piece that came out of Cycle 19 will, for all its successes and failures, always hold a special place for me. (I am consistently fascinated by how the feeling of a time can inscribe itself into the fabric of a piece of music.) Views from the River, as I came to call the work, was written during a period of much internal questioning. Having no formal education, I was constantly in contact with my own inexperience as a composer while I wrote. Away from my desk, I tried to make sense of the real-time disintegration of our democracy, my responsibility within it. And compelling me through all of this was a complex array of emotions and serendipitous occasions calling me to question assumptions about my own cultural history.
I do not come from a musically literate family (though it is a musical one). In fact, no one in my family has any kind of education (though I wouldn’t consider any one of them unintelligent). Over the years a variety of external factors has hindered my own schooling. And so being uneducated, with no formal musical training, and very little experience in the world of notated music… how daunting it was to be in the room with GLFCAM staff, mentors, and my co-fellows! I remember watching one of the performers play a well-crafted and difficult piece of music. I marveled at how deft the composer must have been to seamlessly tie together so many intricate ideas in a meaningful way. It came as a great shock to find that the piece was almost totally improvised, except for highly poetic instructions in English. And I remember getting home, being equally inspired by and unsure of how to write for musicians who could put together such beauty on their own. A main thread through the whole fellowship though, was Gabriela’s insistence on the value our voices hold when used to bring out the best in others. At a certain point, you have to accept that. To be surrounded by that type of talent was an incredible boost to my own compositional growth. To be met with compassion and curiosity - this reaffirmed my commitment to artistic process and how it relates to each of us, as individuals and collectively.
After Boonville, the 3 months we had to finish our pieces occurred during Autumn and early Winter of 2025. The tensions building throughout the U.S. would eventually overflow into the extra-judicial murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. An unknown number of individuals were being disappeared, even on camera. The superficial rhetoric of a nation of morals had finally given way to power-drunken screams of retribution. All of this, we all watched. Yet alongside the paralysis I could see in my peers’ eyes, was that singularity of love that binds us, crystalline, present, real. I found myself surrounded by signs that pointed in a new and unexpected direction, one that perhaps resonated with some deeper cultural inheritance: Christianity.
I am well aware of the history of hypocrisy of the Christian world. Growing up in a Christo-Fascist time & place, my opinion of the religion was very low. And having been raised in a completely unreligious household, I was fortunate to have been allowed the opportunity to engage with many spiritual traditions in my youth. For the first time, throughout 2025 I started exploring the thought of some of the great Christian writers. A vivid concern for the human family was actualizing within me; I began volunteering, donating, protesting, cultivating a rigorous & unrelenting kind of empathy. I found so much meaning in the call to love within Christianity that seemed to harmonize with that perennial peace I thought possible only in other cultures. Its not that these feelings were unfamiliar, but now I took seriously, more than ever before, those great pieces of wisdom handed down to us from the world’s teachers.
With all of that said, I don’t know if I would now self-identify “as a Christian.” But I do know that it is in giving our whole selves to others, in love, that we come to know and can best serve God, who Is love. Our interactions with others leave the permanent trace of our intentions; we have a responsibility to cultivate those intentions. And so self-discovery, self- expression, far from an indulgence is, when done rightly almost a sacrament. It is in composing music that I most fully come to know my own interior design. The lessons borne from deep in my creative consciousness become etched into the sound around my soul - reminders of why we’re here. I am writing towards a life rooted in compassion, in empathy, in giving. I am writing towards a life rooted in love; a life of love.
Where the ocean meets the river my friend took me, the first few days in California. We sat and talked, and I was aware of all these feelings taking place inside. Months later, I heard that river in the opening bars of this music, and I sat, listening.
From this residency, I’ve learned a great deal about the rewards of writing for a novel ensemble. Addressing real-world issues of balance, technique, clarity, is something that happens through experience. Spending the time imagining something as a reality, trying to foresee complications, attempting to creatively address it all and then arriving at the rehearsal to find new difficulties, or that your fix didn’t work, or wasn’t needed… those moments in rehearsals and workshops are just saturated with opportunities to improve your craft. So in a very practical way, I’d love to work with ensembles that aren’t traditional combinations, groups that push the composer to find & test limits.
But more poetically, I am interested in narrative and enjoy interpreting the world in emotional terms. I want to connect the work I do with others to a broader social picture, not necessarily political, but communal - the start of something, even if something small. In this vein, I am looking to get to know more of the musicians in the greater Philadelphia area, while honing the skills needed to effectively run online rehearsals & premieres. I’ve begun work on projects within my immediate circle and want to expand that circle in a stable and mutually beneficial way.
This fellowship has helped me to learn one of the best things one can learn: that there is so much more to learn! The balance between mentorship and professionalism by all of the staff and mentors was masterfully maintained throughout. The genuine interest in translating our ideas into reality was palpable. And the by-example demonstration of the power of musical community, of living musically, has reshaped my understanding of what is possible for my own musical future. It all still feels very open-ended; I’m confident my craft will continue to evolve, the world will continue to turn, and that we will be here, with birds and with tea.
Keith Donaghue
Keith Donaghue is a largely self-taught composer and arranger currently daylighting as House Manager for The Philadelphia Orchestra. In that role as in his music, he is driven by sharing meaningful experiences with the human family and creating music that is fueled by connection and empathy. His works have been performed for the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) and he was one of the Spring ’24 Allentown Symphony New Chamber Music Concert competition winners. He has received several commissions from Philadelphia-local musicians, including a bass feature for mixed ensemble, a trumpet studio piece for seven Bb trumpets, a violin sonata, and others. His background in jazz-influenced improvisation is complemented by a strong control over color and melody to bring about music that is detailed, spontaneous, and cathartic.