Luscious chorus aims to sing us to action on gun violence

Four dead at Cook’s Corner. Four dead in Beverly Crest, Los Angeles. Seven dead at Half Moon Bay. Twelve dead in Monterey Park.

And that was just last year.

If anything could raise the dead, it would be this: The agonizing, excruciating beauty of 50 enormous voices locked in dense, impenetrable harmony, demanding to know “Why? Why? Why?”

The dead are gone — kids killed in their classrooms, women murdered by their lovers, men dying by suicide with their own guns — but the Orange County Women’s Chorus will not forget them. “Arms,” the second concert of its 26th season, takes center stage Saturday and Sunday and is not just a modern requiem to the 40,000-plus Americans killed by gun violence every year, but a hopeful call to action for those who remain.

“This is one of the most interesting programs we’ve done,” said Artistic Director Eliza Rubenstein. “It’s entertaining and unsettling and everything in between. We’re singing ourselves to action.”

Fact: In an average year, 3,253 people die and 7,293 are wounded by guns in California, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Rubenstein has been thinking about doing a concert like this for years. It started to feel like not doing it was turning a blind eye to madness. “There’s so much music about gun violence now,” she said. “There was a lot to choose from, which is a sad commentary.”

‘Mom…mom….’

Isabel Van Ness called her mother Deedra in a frantic whisper during the Santa Fe High School shooting in Texas on May 18, 2018.

“Mom, they are shooting up the school,” the chorus sings, using the girl’s exact words. “I’m hiding…. I’m hiding in a closet…. I love you Mom…. Mom…. Mom….” The piece, Carlos Cordero’s “Normal,” makes one forget to breathe.

Orange County Women’s Chorus will be performing “Arms” this weekend. Incredibly powerful. pic.twitter.com/m1iPIunYQg

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Janelle Forney is a music teacher in Santa Ana. It’s her job to project calm through real lockdowns — including one just a few weeks ago, when an intruder penetrated campus security — but she was in pieces the first time she rehearsed for this concert.

“We plan where we are going to put every single kid,” Forney said. “Do I line them up on the ground right below the windows, so when the shooter looks in they won’t see anybody? Or in the closet? Can I actually fit them all in the closet? As a teacher, you know you might be asked to sacrifice your life for these children.”

Tegan Roberts knows that well. She teaches middle school. She doesn’t need to say a word during active shooter drills; the kids jump quickly to action. They’ve already plotted the best escape routes.

Coming to rehearsals has been a reminder that this is just not normal.

“Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?” demands Karen Siegel’s piece. “Why do we love our guns more than our neighbors?”

Fact: In Orange County, 613 people lost their lives to gun violence over a four-year period, according to CDC data. In Riverside County, 883 people perished. In San Bernardino County, 988. In Los Angeles County, 3,201.

One singer’s boss was murdered in the Las Vegas music festival massacre in 2017 while he was doing the hip-bump with his daughter. “Why?” is the piece that hits her hardest.

‘Remember’

Avielle Richman wasn’t supposed to go Sandy Hook Elementary School that day. Her family had tickets to see the Rockettes in New York City on Dec. 14, 2012 — but there were special programs at school that morning and the first grader didn’t want to miss them.

The last time Avielle’s mother saw her alive, the child was blowing her kisses through the window of the school bus.

“The glorious stories once written or sung,

Fantastical, mystical, and true,

Leave marks on the heart,

and then they live on,

And this is the story of you”

The chorus sings that during “To Avielle, On Her Fifth, Sixth Birthday,” with music by Michael Bussewitz-Quarm and lyrics by Shantel Sellers.

“This is her father remembering — before he died by suicide,” said Mary Watson-Bruce, one of the chorus’ founders.

“I will remember you!” the piece promises at the end. “I will.”

Orange County Women’s Chorus, clip 2 pic.twitter.com/DIx4GqHqV5

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“Say Her Name” is a fierce piece, as at home in a gospel church as it might be resounding across a battlefield. With words and music by Alysia Lee and ferocious syncopation, it demands honor for Black women who’ve died at the hands of police. Their names ring out — Sandra Bland, Riah Milton, Breonna Taylor, Michelle Cusseaux, Rekia Boyd, Latasha Walton — and the chorus is insistent. “Say her name. Say her name. Say her name. She can not  be forgotten by us.”

The music is revelatory in its catharsis, cleansing in its power. “We’re opening it up with song,” said Watson-Bruce, who says Bland’s name. “It gives you hope.”

Fact: Death by gun violence has been increasing. In Orange County in 2018, there were 4.7 firearms-related deaths for every 100,000 residents. By 2021, that rose to 5.1. In Los Angeles, the rate rose from 7.4 to 9.6. In Riverside County, from 8.3 to 9.1. In San Bernardino County, from 10.2 to 11.8.

Action

The music is important, the singers said. Not preachy, not pedantic, but deeply emotional, digging down to those places only music can reach. Love. Loss. Grief. Hope.

“If we are only stardust

Let your names reach to the sky above us

Like petals wafting on a breeze

We lift you up beyond our reach,”

That’s in “Stardust” by Brittny Ray Crowell and B.E. Boykin, envisioning a place where we can run, pray, breathe, sleep and dream without fear.

When we sing, folks have said, we pray twice.

“Wake in the morning and sing, my child, sing my child. Sing for the promise in each new morning. Sing for the hope in a new day dawning. All a round is beauty bright!” they enthuse in Sarah Quartel’s “Sing, My Child.” There are infinite possibilities in each little life.

The chorus is not a political monolith, Rubenstein said. The 50-plus members likely have 50-plus opinions on what needs to happen about gun violence — but the consensus is clearly that something, something needs to happen.

Orange County Women’s Chorus clip 3. (forgive the bad framing, phone camera calibration off just a tad) pic.twitter.com/f8mKxMEb4w

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The chorus wants to make us think as well as feel. It wants to provide tools and inspiration to prod us to action.

“Call your legislator,” said Lindsie Hardy. “Enact change.”

There are arms that embrace and hold us, and arms that take us down, said Jasmine Khorsandi. This “Arms” is a unique musical meditation on pain, healing and love, and it’s something you won’t soon forget, the chorus promises. It will be performed at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 23, and 3 p.m. Sunday, March 24, at St. Wilfrid of York Episcopal Church, 18631 Chapel Lane, in Huntington Beach. Tickets are available at bit.ly/OCWC-Arms.

Forney, the music teacher, sees the faces of her students when she sings these pieces. Sometimes the kids ask why a stranger would want to hurt them. During active shooter drills and real-time lockdowns, no matter how much her heart is racing or how shot-through she is with fear, she maintains a steady, steely, studied calm.

“You play quiet games,” she said. “You tell them everything’s going to be all right.”

Source: Orange County Register