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Music and the minister
Lewis Sligh, a member of the Florida Orchestra and the Episcopal clergy, finds that his two callings have a lot of common ground.
By JOHN FLEMING
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 1, 2001
[Times photo: Bill Serne]
At 49, Lewis Sligh has followed an unusual path to reach his spot as third flute and piccolo player in the Florida Orchestra.
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Going back to Bach, Palestrina and beyond, music and church have gone together, but Lewis Sligh has combined the two in rare fashion.
Sligh is both an ordained Episcopal priest and a symphony orchestra musician. He'll be the soloist this weekend with the Florida Orchestra, in which he is a flutist and piccolo player.
At 49, he has followed a remarkable career path since taking up the flute in his hometown of Atlanta. "I started flute very late, in seventh grade, but it was kind of like a duck taking to water," Sligh said. "Two years later, I was in a student orchestra that played with the Atlanta Symphony, and I decided then that's what I wanted to do."
Sligh was accomplished enough to be admitted to the highly competitive Juilliard School, where he studied for two years until 1971. But then, coming back from a tour of Italy with the conservatory orchestra, he had a change of heart.
"I sensed there was something other than music that I wanted to do, so I transferred to the University of Georgia and took a double major in philosophy and music. It's there I thought I might like to go into the ministry."
Sligh finds much common ground between music and the ministry. "Both music and the vocation of the church attempt to find that ineffable or transcendent part of our experience that, every once in a while, when you touch it, brings incredible joy," he said. "The manner of getting there might be different, but the end goal, I think, is really the same."
But it's impossible to be a minister and a top-level musician at the same time. From 1974 to 1987, Sligh virtually stopped playing flute while he attended seminary at Nashotah House in Wisconsin and then served as a priest at parishes in Colorado and Florida.
Still, he never let go of music completely. "I could never sell my flute," he says. "I played when my arm was twisted."
Sligh became a minister during a tumultuous time for the Episcopal Church, which was split by bitter struggles over issues such as a contemporary revision of the Book of Common Prayer and the ordination of women and openly gay and lesbian clergy.
In 1987, while on the staff of St. Benedict's Church in Fort Lauderdale, his life took another turn.
"There was no big event, other than I just had this abiding feeling that something about life was passing me by," he said. "When I went to the bishop, he told me that God works through you in any way that you will allow him. If you decide to leave the priesthood and go back to music, the circumstances of your employment may change, but the basic relationship with God will be the same."
Sligh moved back to Atlanta, where he held a variety of jobs -- including janitor at an elementary school -- that allowed him the flexibility to revive his musical career. He studied with Carl Hall, piccolo player with the Atlanta Symphony, who encouraged him to begin taking auditions with orchestras. He decided to try for piccolo positions, which were more available than flute jobs.
Though piccolo players are also flutists, the instruments require somewhat different talents.
"If you play the piccolo, there are consequences for some people in their flute playing," said Sligh, the orchestra's third flute. "The embouchure is much smaller, and some people feel like it restricts their flute embouchure. While I can play flute, I don't have the sustaining power to play it for a long, long time. I can play piccolo for hours and it doesn't bother me. But when we have things that have a big third flute part or I'm doubling first or second flute, that's challenging because my embouchure has changed enough that it's tiring."
For several years, Sligh was a freelancer, often subbing with the Atlanta Symphony. He auditioned for the orchestras of Toronto, Boston, Cincinnati, San Francisco and elsewhere.
"It was financially difficult," he said. "But I had been consistently making the finals in auditions, and I knew I could win one if I could just keep going long enough to get there. I decided I was not going to give up."
Finally, after holding temporary positions in the Florida Orchestra, he won the piccolo audition over 40 other players in 1996. This weekend, he is featured in a Vivaldi piccolo concerto and Chaminade's Concertino in D major for flute.
Though now a full-time musician, Sligh hasn't entirely given up the priesthood. He is active at St. Andrew's Church in downtown Tampa, where he occasionally preaches, celebrates the Mass and teaches Sunday school.
He sees some similarity in the current-day predicament of his dual pursuits. The death of classical music has been declared often, and Episcopal Church membership is on the wane.
"It is a challenge to try to figure out how to make both things relevant to people's lives," Sligh said. "Classical music is not just for aesthetes, but you have to do a little study. It requires some sort of response on the part of the listener, and the Episcopal Church does, too. It's not a church that gives easy answers. It might present you with three or four different options for a particular question. All the options are equally true. The challenge is you have to look at your situation and say that one option suits your particular circumstances better than the others."
MUSIC PREVIEW
The Florida Orchestra, Thomas Wilkins conducting, performs at 8 p.m. Friday in Ferguson Hall of Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, 8 p.m. Saturday at Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater. Tickets: $20-$38. (813) 286-2403.
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