Music can bring us together.
Saturday was PMAC’s Unity of Sound Festival. Internally, our staff lovingly refers to this event as the “US Fest,” as in the pronoun ‘us.’ This festival brings us together, in unity, to make and share music. The music is diverse – Saturday’s concert featured classical music, jazz, folk, film scores, bluegrass, Irish music, classic and alt rock, blues, and more. Seventeen adult community ensembles that meet weekly at PMAC performed.
Some of the ensemble members are learning to play music for the first time. Many are reconnecting with music after a long break. And others have played their whole lives. It’s a wonderful mix of people and a very special day. The festival lasted nearly four and a half hours, with each ensemble getting ten minutes to perform. Many in the audience came for the full day to take it all in.
While this is only the second year of the Unity of Sound Festival, in reality we’ve been presenting this concert since 2004. Initially it was called the Concert of Thanksgiving. It happened each November, a week or two prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, and featured all of our adult ensembles.
In 2004 there were only three adult ensembles in the concert. During the first few years this quickly grew to about ten ensembles, and in recent time has ballooned in the best possible way to nearly twenty groups. When it became too big to be an evening concert, the Unity of Sound Festival was born. Some of Saturday’s performers were part of that first Concert of Thanksgiving, twenty years ago.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the concepts of unity and division. When I was growing up, the phrase “united we stand, divided we fall” was a common sentiment. My earliest memories are of the years following the Vietnam War, when there was an energy crisis (I remember waiting in long lines for gasoline in the family car), and inflation and interest rates were running wild (I know more about this now than I did then). We were preparing for the country’s 200th birthday, which happened when I was eight years old. I was too young to truly grasp what was happening politically in the country, but one thing was for sure: adults worked hard to have children feel safe and believe in the core tenets of our country. That we’re all created equal. That being a good leader is something to aspire to. That the U.S. was truly a “melting pot” culture. In high school we sang Irving Berlin’s “Give me your tired, your poor” to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty.
Today, we appear to be much more divided as a country than we were back then. It’s hard to gauge how true that is; the advent of the internet and social media has dramatically and forever changed the way we communicate our beliefs and expanded the reach each of us has as an individual exponentially. I worry a lot about this division, especially at moment like today, when there is a national election in the United States.
When I get worked up about this, I make myself remember the US Fest. The Unity of Sound. That wonderful, one-day event each year that brings 150+ amateur adult musicians together to make music. These musicians rehearse together every week. I guarantee that the members of these groups do not all share a single political ideology. People in these groups will vote as individuals today, and they will not all vote for the same candidates. Some will be happy with the election results, others will be disappointed. But they will all come to rehearsal next week and make music together. United.
It reminds me of the old folk song, “I’d like to teach the world to sing,” which was often performed by The Shaw Brothers, who were folk legends in my neck of the woods. We often sang it in elementary school during music class. Music bring us together. It breaks down the divide and unites us. Let’s keep making music together, no matter what happens today.
And remember to vote.
~Russ
