Initiative aims to unite, strengthen communities through the arts
Posted on March 22, 2021; Updated: March 22, 2021
By Carol JG Ward, [email protected], 803-777-7549
During the summer of 2020, while the university remained in a pandemic standstill with no end in sight, a group of teachers and staff at the School of Music was planning and brainstorming.
They were planning the practical challenges of offering online instruction for a discipline that is inherently face-to-face, but they were also dreaming. Dreaming of a way to use music as a bridge to connect an isolated society while facing the social and cultural challenges of the public health and social justice crises.
During this difficult period, when COVID destroyed families, the economy and our way of life, frontline workers in the community showed extraordinary courage, character and resilience, says Professor David Cutler.
“As musicians, we were wondering what role could we play at this point? We cannot heal anyone. We are not specialists in public health. But we can tell stories, bring people together and celebrate. And then we had an idea. ”
That idea was Celebrating Local Heroes with The Concert Truck, a series of 10 events held aboard a mobile concert hall created by former School Music students Nick Luby and Susan Zhang. The weeklong celebration will honor 10 frontline heroes with video vignettes that highlight personal stories of sacrifice and courage and live music composed and performed by music students and alumni.
I loved every second in Carolina because it is very creative, diverse and varied.
Blair Mothersbaugh, graduate student in flute performance and community involvement
The week culminates with a concert broadcast live at 7 pm on March 29 at the Horseshoe, where UofSC president Bob Caslen will join Dean Tayloe Harding, Luby and Zhang School of Music, two sets of teachers and the Choir of University concert in recognition of the service rendered by honorable men and women.
“Looking back on this year, I think it would be a shame to cancel 2020 and 2021. Why would you throw away a year of your life?” Cutler says. “Instead, we decided to lean towards the moment and ask how COVID can make us better. Together, we look for something really special, developing a way to say ‘thank you’ with our music ”.
The celebration of local heroes with The Concert Truck is part of a larger initiative called Bridging our Distances, launched last fall as a way to connect the campus and the community through music. While planning for this month’s concert series was underway, organizers chose to highlight nurses, doctors, paramedics, teachers, custody / service staff, restaurant / hospitality staff, mental health professionals, grocery staff, chain staff delivery and artists. After a nomination process, 10 workers were selected as representative heroes.
Students of composers and ensembles were recruited to represent all areas of the School of Music – from brass and wind instruments to strings, percussion and voice. Each group was paired with one of the local heroes, who they met through a call from Zoom to learn their history.
The percussion set at which Honors College sophomore Anna Thamasett performed was paired with Deniece Chi, a program coordinator for the National Alliance on Mental Illness SC branch.
“We heard a lot about the increase in mental health problems during the pandemic,” said Thamasett, a medical student from Virginia with a specialization in percussion with a specialization in chemistry. “Talking to someone who helps people make connections with psychiatric professionals about their experience in the pandemic and getting a first-hand look at the struggle for mental health was very informative and inspiring.”
Thamasett is also excited to be part of a project that improves accessibility to music, bringing concert hall presentations to the community.
“It helped me to think about music in different contexts and how I can use it to draw attention to a particular cause, like local heroes during the pandemic,” she says.
With the locations of the Koger Center and School of Music closed because of COVID-19, graduate student Blair Mothersbaugh says Celebrating Community Heroes is a perfect way to bring music to people instead of making them look for music.
Mothersbaugh – a Wyoming native working on a master’s degree in flute performance with an emphasis on community involvement – helped organize the coordination logistics for 10 concert venues. This includes everything from traffic, parking and security to sound and vision lines. He says that planning all these details has been a challenge and a learning experience.
“My graduate assistant partner and I work very collaboratively on what the shows will be like, what is the content, what is the flow, what is the experience of the people who are watching,” he says. “This helps in all phases of event planning – not just the logistics, but the vision we are trying to achieve and the value that underscores all of this.”
The vision of Celebrating Local Heroes and the Bridging Our Distances initiative arose out of a desire to harness the pandemic’s potential for innovation – looking for ways to harness the power of music to bring communities together, build relationships and get involved beyond a traditional concert hall . Cutler and Mothersbaugh say that using creative thinking to get out of the School of Music bubble can reshape the show experience, reach new audiences and illustrate that the arts are relevant and accessible.
Opportunities to share inspiring stories, work on projects like Celebrating Local Heroes and learn marketing, community involvement and creative skills were important in his decision to pursue a master’s degree in South Carolina, says Mothersbaugh.
“In addition to being a great musician, these are the skills that can help take off a career in the arts. It is a great environment and I loved every second in Carolina because it is very creative, diverse and varied. ”
If you are going
Celebrating Community Heroes is a weeklong celebration of 10 local performances to honor 10 frontline heroes with original music composed and performed by students and alumni of the UofSC School of Music and video vignettes to share their personal stories.
Share this story! Let your friends on your social network know what you’re reading about
Topics: students, alumni, faculty, service, college of arts and sciences, music school, South Carolina Honors College