This week’s column began with exploration of how language is a two-edged sword, the vehicle by which we communicate through time and space with gigantic limits created by confused meanings generated by time and space, but then ..
I went to Cazenovia Central School’s Choral Festival, a tour de force of communication without limits – far better and far more interesting than what I had written.
It began with the evening’s paper program, handed to me by excited, smiling adults who knew what was soon to happen. I have attended hundreds of events that have professionally printed programs and I can attest, without reservation, that this program was the most relevant if not the most vibrantly beautiful. Inside its student designed cover art, it offered not only the proper listings of the performers and performances but more examples of vibrant student art. It was a wow!
But nothing could have elevated my spirit more than the performances themselves, from the sixth grade’s rendition of “SiSi Sote” to the evocative beauty of the final piece, the combined choirs from that sixth grade, Junior High Chorus, the Chamber Choir, Treble Choir, Men’s Chorus and the Concert Choir which filled the stage and the proscenium with the soul satisfying “You Will Be Found:”
Even when the dark comes crashing through
When you need a friend to carry you
And when you’re broken on the ground
You will be found
So let the sun come streaming in
‘Cause you’ll reach up and you’ll rise again
Lift your head and look around
You will be found
Oh, my! Cane and all, I was on my feet cheering for those young voices and the brilliance of the music department that put this evening together.
Beyond the exquisite sounds was a choreography of choirs that began with the Chamber Choir’s first piece sung from the balcony, quickly followed by one group after another entering either on stage or from the audience without a break. It was a movement, a dance of choirs that added to this stellar evening.
And still beyond that, my teacher heart told me, as I have often commented, that the arts are the quintessential way in which we demonstrate the validity of education. In performance, particularly when that performance involves groups, the goals of education shine. The lesson is in the singer and the song. When students learn that their individual voices, blending in harmony or disharmony, create a sound that none of them can produce by themselves. It is the basic concept that underlies our human civilization. In school, music encourages students of all levels of ability to learn, grow and blend with each other. There are no exclusive lunch tables for performance art…all are welcome. The individual shines and the group takes that shine and polishes it.
Teaching, learning, practice, evaluation, authentic evaluation are hallmarks of performance. The individual parts of that package being important, as one professor of computer science told me, in learning the way to organize a mind for better things. A few students will become professional musicians, but all will carry what they have learned and experienced with them, a way of interpreting reality, of expression and communication… education for now and their futures, sometimes sweet memories of a spring night.
And last night there was – and you could feel it in the delight of the audience – a sense of transcendence in a world that is far too stressful, that so often demonstrates the idea that the bottom line determines all … a contrast to the splendid effort of those students and their teacher which soared above that base line and made us feel something very good.
Last night, Maggie Dougherty, the director, gave her students and their loved ones a gift of music, created in the moments of preparation and performance, built on hard work, practice and dedication, a treasure, a true treasure. Bravo! Bravo!
