Music Can Help.
In March, just before everything shut down, I was sitting in a church at a Cleveland Chamber Choir rehearsal and I wrote the following words:
I’m writing between rehearsals of “She Stood for For Freedom” and “This Morning’s Paper” by the Cleveland Chamber Choir, directed by Scott MacPherson, for their We March On! Music of Social Justice concert in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Kent State shootings. One of the choir members asked me when I wrote these two pieces and when I said 9-10 years ago, they were amazed. “Not much has changed,” she noted. We have come so far, and yet we have so far to go.
I sense that this is a pivotal moment in our history. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia are still with us. They have been here all along, but often we tend to want to hear music focused on hope, love and peace. And yet, it appears that choirs and audiences now seem to be ready for a new message. There seems to be room for hurt and pain in a way there was not before.
Audiences are ready for “She Stood for Freedom.” (I was told by more than one person that “She Stood for Freedom would be hard to market since it was a song about women for mixed choir.) Audiences and choirs are ready for “This Morning’s Paper” which speaks of how we deal with unimaginable tragedy. It affects us, whether it occurs halfway across the earth or down the street – we are all connected.
We are full. We are full of hurt. We are full of pain. We are overflowing with sorrow and don’t know what to do with all of it. We need music that matches our pain. We need music that not only matches it, but can hold it, because we can’t hold it any longer, individually. Music gives us a vessel for our pain and our sorrow. Music allows our hearts to be broken wide-open. It doesn’t make the pain go away, but it gently holds it.
When we are allowed to feel the pain, it can be transformed, allowing us to move forward with action. Pain and sorrow now become directed outward into love. Radical, all-embracing love — for everyone and everything. This may sound like magic, because it is. Music is magical. It can hold pain and sorrow. It can transform us.
So join the revolution! Check out “She Stood for Freedom” and “This Morning’s Paper.”
Let your spirit be moved. Open up your soul. We need you. We Need Everyone.
And here we are, six months later in the middle of a world-wide pandemic, George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis setting off protests and calls for change around the world, and choirs are on hiatus for the foreseeable future. Who could have foreseen that the world would be turned upside down? Who would have thought that we would need music now more than ever and that it is unavailable to us in a way that we had be used to hearing it.
In the meantime, please give a listen to these two powerful recordings from the Cleveland Chamber Choir! Enjoy!
With Love,
Catherine
Photo by Alex Block on Unsplash