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Miracle–Community Becomes Art

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Turning a community into an art form is for me, a miracle. This miracle is taking place throughout the world, every day.
In New York City, a community of lawyers, judges, and clerks, under the direction of miracle-worker Kathryn Schneider, formed the City Bar Chorus.
 
And not to be outdone, in Northern Ireland
the miracle takes place in the form of the Pro Bono Lawyer's Choir.
 
And speaking of Bono, I love the fact that Bono (of U2) teamed up with the Soweto Gospel Choir for the celebration of Bishop Desmond Tutu's Birthday.
 
Closer to my area of significant interest (and thoughts of future personal-miracle-working) there is the Marske Fishermans Choir

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfDxbQ3ZCuY
 
And for the community of bicycle enthusiasts and choral music lovers, you have to admire the dexterity of the Ann Arbor Bicycle Choir.
 
In cities around the world including Helsinki, Birmingham, St. Petersburg, and Chicago, guided by the slogan "People like to complain. People like to sing", Complaints Choirs take griping and moaning to a new artistic height.
 
As noted in my April 19, 2011, ChoralBlog, in Papua, New Guinea, there existed a Cannibal Choir. In this unique choir, men would chant and sing, smoke a local tobacco, and then chant and sing some more. Gradually a person's name from the tribe evolved through song, and subsequently, that person was chosen to be featured at/in dinner.
 
In a socially responsible working of miracles, across the country we now hear of the formation of Prison Choirs, like the Oakdale Prison Community Choir in Iowa, directed by Mary Cohen.
 
And this year at ACDA's Eastern Division Conference, we learned of Hospice and "Bedside" Choirs such as the Threshold Choir of Littleton, Massachusetts. These miraculous communities of art literally sing to an individual as they depart from this life.
 
Near the conclusion of 2011, many of us were brought into a new community of empathy through the miracle of Great Britain's Military Wives Choir. These soldiers' wives sang as a choral community to their husbands serving in hostile areas around the world.
 
Humility will prevent you from adding "miracle worker" to your résumé, but know it is there as you turn a community into an art form.

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  1. Tim – Let me add a few more to this listing.  I don’t know if they are still in existence, but in the late 80s and early 90s in eastern France, near Strasbourg, there was a choir called “L’Eau Vive” whose mission it was to sing at prisons, orphanages, hospices, hospitals, parishes too poor to afford a music program of any size or excellence – and that was their mission.  I knew its president, a true gentleman by the name of Jacques Hatte (a retired French Army officer); it was this choir that inspired me and others to form “The Living Water” here in N. Virginia, whose “Music with a Mission” is to make themselves available for singing for sacred liturgies in times and places where a choir is desired, but none is available.  We’ve been in existence for more than 10 years, and we continue to increase our mission to retirement communities, religious events, etc.  In the larger sense, we are all part of the community of making musical art for others wiithout thought of recompense, and as not “performers” but “presenters” – in the same sense of “presenting” a gift, in the way the Magi did for the Christ Child.
     
    Ron Duquette
    Founding Director
    The Living Water
    “an a cappella, sacred music, service choir”

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