In
a couple of weeks, Resonance Women’s Chorus,
the chorus with which I volunteer and about which I’ve often written, will
present their spring concert. It’s been fun to hear the music come together and
come to life over the past several months, so I’m looking forward to hearing it
as a package, all polished up for show. My enthusiasm about this particular
concert is heightened by the topic and by conversations among chorus members
about its meaning. The theme, to oversimplify for the moment, is climate
change. But that term doesn’t begin to describe the intent of the programming or
the scope of the music. It’s not, as you might expect, a lesson about how we’ve
all failed to tend to the planet. And it’s not, as you might also imagine, a lesson
in what we should all be doing to prevent or accommodate to it. It's actually something else entirely.
So
I want to talk about this concert and how I understand it—knowing full well
that other folks will find other meanings in it. I offer this as a teaser,
hoping you’ll come experience it for yourself and see what meaning you craft from it.
First,
let me share the publicity about the concert to give you an idea of what I’m
talking about here.
The
concert is called “Sea Change: Love
Song for a Warming Planet.” The text on the poster describes it as “… an
exploration in sound and song of the emotional experience of living with
climate change. It's an attempt to simply be with the 'not knowing'
that underlies all of our wonderings and fears about the Earth's future and our
own. Sea Change is a
concert about nature, beauty, love, loss, and the extraordinary experience of
being here now.”
Far
from what you might expect, this concert seems to me like an invitation to
become aware, to be open to the almost unimaginable experience of being witness
to changes that surely signal a change in—and might signal an end to—human experience
as we know it. To be aware of the sheer delight of this earth and, at the very same
time, of the trembling forecasts for its future. The feeling that comes with knowing
that we are responsible, each of us, for this situation, even as we stubbornly,
unmindfully fail to change our ways of being. The consciousness of being in
denial, yet of being terrified for future generations. Of simultaneously taking warm delight in a melody, a caress, or a cloud and sensing its impermanence.
It’s about experiencing deep, gut-level fear and also breath-stopping amazement
at the profound peace that remains to be found in nature. It’s about all of
those or none of them or something else. But it’s not a predictable climate
change program.
The concert promises a rich collection of beautiful, evocative music—evocative
of a range of emotions including those I’ve mentioned and others. Everyone
there, performer and listener, will likely find something different in it. At
minimum, it’s an hour and a half of wonderful music. I can’t imagine that
anyone would leave without being touched in some way. I know I have been, and I’ve
only heard the rehearsals. So far.
I
invite you to come if you can. Three opportunities: April 11, 12, and 18. For more
information and to order tickets, visit the Resonance website at www.resonancechorus.org and click on “Performances.”
