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Acclaimed composer/arranger/educator Dr. Rollo Dilworth, addressing The World House Choir of Yellow Springs, right before their performance of his Weather: Stand The Storm.
He’s co-writer/creator of this transformative work, one that merges deeply the uplifting power of art and song with the civic awareness of the heavy lifting we actually need to be doing right now, especially in the face of the threats of the kinds of falsity and injustice we face today.
As World House Choir director Catherine Roma, notes…
All music is functional; it serves a purpose.
She’s also right about raising voices together in community can empower change. In fact, it can’t help but change something, even if just within us. You have to be morally comatose not to have music move something, open something, change something within ourselves when we hear it, when we feel it. When we ride it, when we sail it, to say nothing of when we amplify it.
As Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon once told Roma, “singing together in community changes the air we breath.” And as Catherine stated, “voices empowered together can sing a new world into existence.”
Here’s to singing that new world into existence. A world worthy of our most beautiful songs.
“The experience of composing Weather has truly been a transformative experience for me. I hope the music challenges the performers to become better artists; the text will certainly challenge all who hear it to become better citizens in their communities….
“May ‘Weather’ inspired us all to ‘disorder the disorder,’ and to do our part in shaping a society that is fair and just for not just a few, but for everyone.”
— Dr. Rollo Dilworth
All of this providing ample illuminating fuel for future editions of It's All Happening.
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