{"id":12167,"date":"2023-09-14T15:37:45","date_gmt":"2023-09-14T19:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/?p=12167"},"modified":"2023-09-14T18:48:59","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T22:48:59","slug":"to-the-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/to-the-mountains\/","title":{"rendered":"“To the Mountains”"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

\"Hollins<\/h5>\n
By Billy Faires<\/h5>\n

Some famous artists are inspired by muses, but Lillian Savage \u201923 was inspired by ghosts.<\/p>\n

In the fall of 2019, she was a brand-new first-year student on campus, intrigued by all the ghost stories getting referenced and whispered about in one or another gathering. She decided to look into it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did some digging in the archives of the library and found several articles and firsthand accounts of ghostly happenings at Hollins,\u201d Savage said. And then, as the winter of her first year turned to spring, COVID-19 shut down the campus and sent students home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pandemic was a cabin-fever-filled time for everyone, and it gave me ample opportunity to let the stories percolate and form into a fictional narrative surrounding Hollins culture and three popular ghost stories: the Ghost of Presser Music Hall, the Ghost of the Green Drawing Room, and the Theatre Ghost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those stories became the inspiration for her senior theatre thesis, \u201cTo the Mountains.\u201d The short musical contains seven songs, \u201csix of which I wrote over the course of a year and a half during quarantine,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last song and titular track, \u2018To the Mountains,\u2019 was finished in April of 2022, and took on a life of its own, separate from the musical. It\u2019s a song about perseverance through the metaphor of climbing a mountain, and if Hollins students know anything, it\u2019s how to climb a mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if Savage wasn\u2019t fully aware of it early on, as more Hollins ears heard the tune, there was a growing sense she had captured something even bigger. Perhaps\u2014perhaps\u2014not quite alma mater-level powerful, but something very close to it, a sense of timeless love for a place and its purpose infused in words that never have to say, \u201cWe love you, Hollins, oh yes we do\u201d and yet the feeling pours through with every note.<\/p>\n

She found herself taking on the new challenge of writing a choral version last fall, an a cappella four-part SSAA (two sopranos, two altos) piece attempting to take \u201cinspiration from the auditory experience of being on top of a mountain, as the parts echo and layer on top of each other as a form of mountainous mimicry,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The climb to the completion of this arrangement, she soon discovered, was even more challenging than the climb to the top of Tinker.<\/p>\n

\u201cSongwriting and music composition are different in many aspects. Some of my challenges were creating a more complex harmonic structure, while still retaining good voice leading, and filling every moment with some form of musicality, as a cappella pieces fully rely on the voice to serve as the verbal instrumentation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The song became the school\u2019s unofficial spring anthem, as it was first performed for her musical in April and then in choral performances at Honors Convocation, a recital, and then again at Commencement on Front Quad. Few expect that to be the last time the song is performed at a Hollins function, based on the feedback and the powerful emotional responses so many connected to the university have shared.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe messaging of the song never changes no matter how it is sung,\u201d Savage said.<\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_column_text](lyrics)<\/em><\/p>\n

Lift your eyes there,
\nto the mountains.
\nWe\u2019ll be found there
\nby and by.
\nWe can go there,
\nto the mountains,
\nwhere the tall peaks
\ntouch the sky.
\nThere\u2019s a straight path
\nto the mountains
\nbut it\u2019s lined with
\nbrush and stone.
\nThrough the tall trees,
\nup the valleys
\nwhere the blue sky
\nmeets the green and gold.
\nThere\u2019s a view there
\nkin to heaven
\nand every word
\nthe angels echo.
\nWhatever god made
\nthe open seas and plains,
\nclearly loved the mountains better.
\nThere\u2019s only one way
\nto the mountains
\nit\u2019s not easy
\nbut we try.
\nKeep believing
\nand maybe someday
\nyou can find your strength
\nand learn to fly.
\nThough there\u2019s rivers, rocks and
\nboulders, though there\u2019s twists
\nand turns along the way,
\nwhen we get there
\nwe can turn and say
\nthat the climb\u2019s best in sunny weather.
\nLift your eyes there,
\nto the mountains.
\nWe\u2019ll be found there
\nby and by.
\nWe can go there,
\nto the mountains,
\nwhere the tall peaks
\ntouch the sky.<\/p>\n

\n

Watch performances of “To the Mountains” by scanning the QR codes:<\/p>\n

\"QR[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text] By Billy Faires Some famous artists are inspired by muses, but Lillian Savage \u201923 was inspired by ghosts. In the fall of 2019, she was a brand-new first-year student on campus, intrigued by all the ghost stories getting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138],"tags":[136],"class_list":["post-12167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-corner","tag-summer-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12167"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12188,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12167\/revisions\/12188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}