Stop Politicizing Creativity
In a divided world, the artist’s task is not to take sides, but to heal, connect, and lift others higher.
If you’ve been reading my Substack at all over the past ten months, you know that I love talking about choral singing.
Choral singing has comprised a large part of my career as a professional classical singer. It is work that I love, and to which my vocal and musical skill sets are well-suited. I’ve sung major masterworks with large concert choirs, where it feels exhilarating to be engulfed in waves of sound; with chamber choirs that specialized in hot-off-the-presses new music speaking to the important social issues of our time; and with all-professional church choirs where the intricacies of Renaissance polyphony and the timeless beauty of Gregorian chant hold pride of place.
I love choral singing for the variety of music I get to perform, and for the ways it challenges me as a singer to find new sounds and to work in ever-changing musical contexts. It has made me a much more versatile, adaptable singer, and honed my musical and vocal diagnostic and problem-solving skills. Each ensemble and each work is like a new puzzle to solve: you need to figure out what kind of piece you are, where you fit, and how you can blend seamlessly with the pieces around you to create a unified whole.
Perhaps even more importantly, however, I love choral singing for the collaboration it requires. I love that individuals from vastly different backgrounds and walks of life, and with diverging viewpoints about a great many things, can come together, and just for an hour or two, agree on something and contribute to something beautiful and unified. Choir is a place where everyone can set their own agenda aside, as well as a respite from the troubles and cares of life.
About seven or eight years ago, I was going through some tough personal stuff, and, through it all, choral singing was an absolute oasis for me. During a time in my life when I felt very misunderstood and betrayed, and some of the closest relationships in my life felt like they had been fractured irreparably into a million tiny pieces, choir was a place where I could go to escape from all of that. It was a place where no one cared what my beliefs were, where I was simply embraced and accepted for the artist and human I was. Even though rehearsals went late into the evening after I’d spent a full and tiring afternoon teaching young students, they were energizing and life-giving. I felt connected to a purpose greater than myself. I had community. I had friends.
During the covid pandemic, I was one of those people who was disappointed to the point of tears that choral singing was deemed Unsafe Activity #1. This thing that I’d come to value so much in the couple of years prior, and had begun to prioritize as one of the main components of my performing career, had suddenly been taken from me, seemingly indefinitely.
I participated and even spearheaded some virtual choir projects during the pandemic. While they were enjoyable and I acquired a lot of valuable tech-y skills, they were not the same. In addition to all the new difficulties I was navigating with remote recording, I missed being able to interact with other human voices in real time. It was really, really depressing.
It was, ironically, during the pandemic that I discovered what choral singing truly meant to me, and felt a passion ignited within me focused on how this art form could have a positive impact on the world. As I began to think more seriously about my role as an artist in today’s modern landscape – my community, the music industry, and the world – my beliefs and philosophies about art began to crystallize into a vision that would carry me through the next several years, all the way up to the point where I am now. I knew that I had to embrace this identity as a performer, as a creator and sharer of music, after years of believing that performing and choral singing were things I only did “on the side” or “when I had time” or “for fun.” I knew that I had something to share with the world, and choral singing was one of the vehicles through which I would do that.
As things began to open up in late 2021 and in-person choral singing started happening again, I began to pursue it in earnest. Given the toll the lockdowns had taken on everyone and how rusty my skills were – not to mention the masking, the distancing, the testing, and all the other restrictions that were still in place – it was difficult. But I knew it was one of the things I was meant to be doing.
Those first couple of seasons coming out of the covid lockdowns were, hands down, one of the most formative times for me as an artist. In many ways it felt like trial by fire. My voice was challenged by difficult but rewarding repertoire. My musicianship and ensemble skills, which were already excellent, grew more than I ever thought possible. I made new friends, new connections, and was given many wonderful opportunities. I learned a ton singing alongside incredibly skilled colleagues who showed me what excellent choral singing really is. I worked with a lot of new conductors and directors, all of whom broadened my perspective on the art form in a new way. After those first few difficult months, I began to find my footing, and grew into a level of confidence about my singing and my artistry that I had never had before.
While I certainly also did a good amount of solo singing during those years, choral singing was undeniably the main catalyst for my vocal and musical growth.
And even with all the covid restrictions – or, maybe, perhaps, because of them – that were in place all the way through fall of 2022, I felt the community, solidarity, and connection I’d been missing during the lockdowns. I think many others did, too. There was a palpable sense of relief at being able to do “normal” things again. Having been starved of human connection for a long time, there was an element of excitement and friendliness and welcoming that pervaded a lot of spaces. We were all just happy to be with each other again, singing.
A Changing Landscape
Over the past couple of years, however, I have noticed the landscape change.
Just as the sociocultural climate created by the crisis of the pandemic had shaped music-making spaces (for better or for worse), I now see those spaces shaped by the social and political climates that have been permeating American society as a whole for the past couple years.
