“My dream for this nation is expressed in ‘E Pluribus Unum,’” [Ginsburg] said. “I dream that we will come together to listen to each other, come together for the common good. I dream that we will come together to uphold the ideal of ‘Out of the Many, One.’”
— Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s closing thoughts about the intersection of justice and opera at the Glimmerglass Festival in 2019
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be commemorated first, and rightfully so, by her achievements in justice as a champion for equality. But let us also remember her lifelong passion for opera and music – a love that bridged seemingly insurmountable ideological gaps and transported her to realms far from her law briefs.
While processing news of Justice Ginsburg’s death, I reflected on a documentary film, The Way Forward, recently produced by The Colburn School in Los Angeles and directed By Hamid Shams.
While the video isn’t yet available to the public, it opens with Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” – conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen – which poignantly echoes both Justice Ginsburg’s love for the “freeing act of experiencing a performance” and her desire for us to come together.
“This time is clearly a test for humanity,” percussionist Ted Atkatz, Colburn faculty member, says in one of the many interviews with the musicians who have been isolated during the pandemic. “The arts are what can give us hope and faith and bond us to each other. If ever we needed hope, now is that time.”
Isolation as a result of COVID-19 has forced many musicians to retreat to corners of their bedroom closets to practice in makeshift soundproof “studios” without disturbing those living on the other side of their apartment walls. But through technology, they find connection. And humanity.
The Way Forward was created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the need for musicians to reimagine traditional in-person concerts.
Or perhaps it goes far beyond the need. As Salonen points out in the film, it is “the will.” The will of today’s musicians to adapt technology to be able to play together for an online audience. The will that Ruth Bader Ginsburg possessed to ensure legal rights and equality for women. The will that is expressed through the triumphant percussion and horns in Copland’s “Fanfare.”
Right now, technology is being stretched to its limits to accommodate the timbre of musical instruments across time, space and equipment. Teachers are struggling to adapt quickly to online lessons after students were ripped from their programs without even enough time for proper goodbyes. A multitude of time zones are being navigated as they find themselves scattered across the world, searching for ways to continue making music without what was formerly essential: a shared physical space.
And yet, the show must go on.
Throughout the arc of human existence, music has been, and continues to be a prevailing force for good — one that unites us in times of turmoil, and lifts us up in the face of great tragedy. The time of COVID-19 is no different.
The Way Forward illuminates how the impulse to share is alive and driving the music community to redefine togetherness and find new ways to reach us.
Through the video’s arresting visual accompaniment to the Colburn musician’s socially distanced, technology-enabled performances, we catch a glimpse of a future that converges humanity’s creative achievements: architecture, urban planning, music and digital visual effects to create a new kind of audio-visual experience that is in no way limited by a need for physical proximity.
The act of transcending limitations to come together while apart lives in composer Eric Whitacre’s sixth and largest virtual choir, “Sing Gently.”
“There’s something about the amount of emotional information that is conveyed in the human voice that, for me, is magical,” Whitacre says, after explaining that he was inspired to create his latest piece after witnessing the mass separation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. “It is a kind of medicine. It’s the kind of medicine that you really need during a crisis like this.”
17,572 singers from 129 countries are what make “Sing Gently” so extraordinary, all singing together from their individual bedrooms, kitchens and home offices across the globe. Here, Whitacre’s will to create a new kind of music experience using technology and thousands of voices expresses “out of the many, one.”
While this expanded idea of togetherness and performance is different from what we’ve known up to this point, it is more alive than ever. Through adversity our human symphony flourishes.
The Colburn School began as a communal project and grew into an internationally renown school of music, one that is far greater than the sum of its parts — a sentiment that rings true for performances of every nature, as well as the reality of humanity’s collective existence.
To Justice Ginsburg I say thank you for everything. Thank you for the parts and thank you for the sum. Thank you for reminding us that music is an ineffable power. One that holds the key to bridging the unnamable and strange divide between human beings. As we go forward, we will remember your passion, and no matter what we face, we will remember that togetherness through music is who we are.
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If you are interested in hearing “Fanfare for the Common Man,” try this publicly available version on youtube, conducted by Leonard Bernstein in 1942 with Aaron Copland in the audience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK1N46dRPVg&ab_channel=JohnRandolph
And of course, if you want your life changed in a good way, listen to “Virtual Choir 6: Gently Sing,” conducted and composed by Eric Whitacre: