May 16, 2025 • 60 mins
This second episode focuses on the Tacoma Refugee Choir and explores its mission, the philosophy of creating collaborative and shared spaces, placemaking, and a dialogue about the language of refugees and who gets to choose the language that defines the stories of who we are. Within decentered choral pedagogy, we examine notions of Empowering Song and the themes of risk and exploration within decentralized leadership. In relation to placemaking, we consider how the arts contribute to knitting together communities. Interwoven throughout this episode is a tapestry of Tacoma Refugee Choir performances and the voices of the singers reflecting on what this choir means to them.
The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson at Elizabethtown College. Join our professional development network at www.musicpeacebuilding.com - thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care.
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Episode Transcript
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Erin Guinup (00:00):
That empower people and enfranchise people to feel
like they have their creativespirits. Humans have a right to
human expression, a human rightto create. And so how can we
honor this human right to createin a way that doesn't make
people feel like they're notenough, they are enough today to
(00:20):
contribute.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (00:21):
You are listening to season four of the
music and peace buildingpodcast, a podcast season
focused on multi facetedtextures of belonging. Our
podcast explores intersectionsof peacebuilding, sacredness,
community, creativity andimagination through research and
story.
This is part two of a journeyacross two years of
(00:43):
conversations about the Tacomarefugee choir. Erin Guinup was
the founding executive andartistic director of the Tacoma
refugee choir, and is anationally recognized scholar,
performer and clinician. OrlandoMorales is the artistic director
of the choir and a music theatercomposer and director, arts
leader and pianist. Theexecutive director of the Tacoma
(01:07):
refugee choir is J Woody Lotts.
In this part two of anexploration of the Tacoma
refugee choir, we look at themission, constructions of
spaces, empowering song, andfinally, a dialog about who gets
to choose the language thatdefines the stories of who we
are. I asked Erin about themission statement and our need
(01:29):
to move from outsider to Insiderstatus.
So I want to read the missionstatement of the refugee choir
in the book chapter you wrote,you state that the mission
statement of the choiremphasizes the value of
belonging and hope in creating awelcoming community, the
strengths of one's socialnetwork is shown to be a key
(01:50):
indicator of health and successand a sense of belonging. So
this season, we're looking atbelonging, and I think I wanted
to open up with that questionabout places and spaces. So you
have a very interesting storyabout the start of the choir in
which people show up and there'sno refugees in a refugee choir,
and you write very beautifullyabout your realization about why
(02:14):
place and space matters. Socould you open that up for us
about the intersection ofbelonging, place and space?
Erin Guinup (02:21):
Absolutely, I think all we can do actually, is
create spaces, whether that'sphysical space or metaphorical
space. And there are a lot ofbarriers that they face. Some of
them are perceived and some ofthem are real. So in the case of
starting the choir, there weresome very real barriers to that
(02:42):
space being, unfamiliarity, abit of distance, and those
factors need to be overcome inorder for someone to feel
comfortable in that space. Andthen you have the relationships.
And the reality is that firstweek in the choir, a number of
people already knew each other,and so anyone to come into that
(03:03):
space is going to perceivethemselves as an outsider, no
matter if you have thatintention. And so it's
overcoming that creating spacefor someone to quickly go from
outsider to Insider that iscritical in any way that we
work, whether that's at thegrocery store or in their music
(03:23):
ensembles that we're creating.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (03:25):
In her 2020 article on the formation of
the refugee choir, Guinup writesabout an individual with Kurdish
refugee experiences. She writesquote as I was ending the phone
call more discouraged thanbefore he thanked me for
listening and being his friend,I was struck with the clear
(03:47):
realization that the music wehad made together had created an
intimacy of trust that allowedus to develop a deep friendship.
While I could not end violenceand suffering, I could sit with
him, to lift him up while hisheart was breaking, when we feel
powerless to help those we careabout, our friendship and
(04:11):
support is sometimes the onlyresources we have to give, and
perhaps the most valuable. Heand I would never have developed
this powerful relationship if wehad not first sung together. The
joining of voices and song maybe a grounding of breath and
(04:33):
presence, opening intimacies oftrust and relationship
Unknown (04:37):
[From documentary on TRC] practices in person, I love
the song that everyone's saying,Hello, friend. How are you
today?
A friend of mine, I think hisname is Clovis. He told me about
the refugee choir about aboutthree years ago, I was
searching. I was searching for achoral
group. Over the course of thislast year, the Tacoma refugee
(04:57):
choir has become kind of like asecond home to me. We
moved out from, I was in afoster parent for foster care.
So I moved out, you know, Ibrand new to, you know, to
everything, and I was kind oflost. Honestly, I was
one of the first people to jointhe choir. Once I get there,
then I begin to click in. And IWhat helps are the people.
(05:22):
I really wanted to be part of acommunity that welcomed people
regardless of where they werefrom, because I could see how
there was a lot of division inthe world, and I wanted to help
bring some unity to my small,little corner. Before I
joined the choir, I was reallyself conscious, really unsure of
(05:45):
myself for what I wanted to do.
And then I joined the choir, andI found a place where I could
just be myself and expressmyself how I want to and not
worry about being being judgedby others, the little
by little that you know, roomsare growing for me to be what
you know I should be. Notonly does this choir community
(06:06):
make them feel a sense ofbelonging within the choir, but
they feel a sense of belongingin this country that they had
not yet felt. And so I alwaysfeel like I want to be part of
that. I would love to be part ofwhat makes someone feel like
they belonghere. Support of the community.
When you are in, when you'resad, or if you need help, it's
(06:33):
very important.
But trust me, when we're singingin a group, I feel like I'm a
good singer, so I'm motivatedand and the songs, my stories,
and the love that everyone inthe choir shows to each other
kind of just fills you up withlove and joy. And at the end of
(06:55):
the rehearsal, you're like abrand new man, and you go to
sleep and really nice, expectingfor better things tomorrow, even
if you cannot sing, you can comeand listen and somebody's going
to be lifted up. That's just howthat is. I'm learning about
myselfThe choir is everything to me.
It has become part of who I amand become part of my identity,
(07:21):
because I love these people somuch.
The choir gave me, beside mypersonal life, my family and my
work, the choir became like havea room in my mind what I think
about every day, and I don'tthink about as a job or
(07:42):
something. It is a place where Iwant to go. I can share anything
I want to share, and people willstill take it, even if I doubt
myself,
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (07:52):
they lift me up.
What resonates from me as I as Ithink about space and place that
resonate with you probably themost impactful peacebuilding
work I think I've ever done waswhen we had a Puerto Rican bomba
y plena group come toElizabethtown college. And I
had, I had recognized thatcentral Pennsylvania, at that
(08:14):
time, was the second largestsite of Puerto Rican migration
in the United States, especiallyfollowing Hurricane Maria. And
started getting into thisliterature about the re-
territorialization of space,like a college campus doesn't
really feel like a Puerto Ricanspace in many senses, and it's a
huge barrier, because maybe if Iidentify as Puerto Rican, I
(08:36):
wouldn't see myself as thatbeing my space. And we
developed, like five schoolbusses to come to the concert
hall. Everybody came in. Themusic started. It started to
heat up. But when that spacebecame a Puerto Rican space, was
when the flags came out, theCoqui calls came out, and then
the the African diasporatradition of call response like
(08:59):
comes out between the band andpeople, and it was this powerful
moment for me to recognize how aspace can be re-territorialized
by a community, and then all ofa sudden, it becomes a space for
this, this group, plus thisgroup and the the radical work
of peacebuilding that happensthere. I don't know if any of
(09:21):
that resonates with you. No, Iabsolutely,
Erin Guinup (09:22):
I absolutely love this. I that idea, because I
think we have, you know,beautiful venues throughout the
country that people keep saying,why aren't people not coming
into that space? And this ideais absolutely true. And I think
we can look at the other side ofthe coin of taking our music
into other spaces. And there'slots of people doing this, of
(09:44):
you know, hosting concerts inunconventional spaces in the
communities. And I think thatthat's super important as well.
That one thing that we've talkedabout in our team is it's so
important for us not to justexpect people to come to us. For
us to go, go to them, and notjust go to them with our
programming, but go to theirevents, show up in their
(10:07):
community pieces, because reallywhat we're looking for are
relationships. That is whatbelonging is. It's a
relationship. It's which meansit's not one way. It's not
transactional. It is. It meansshowing up to the things that
matter for them as well, andbeing humble enough to listen if
(10:29):
our programming needs to changein order to meet the need, even
if it's uncomfortable for us. Ithink one thing I've really
tried to embrace is this idea ofwillingness to be uncomfortable,
not to a point of complete selfsacrifice all the time, but I
have made lots of changes in theway that I teach in order to
(10:51):
accommodate our needs. Forexample, we don't use sheet
music most of the time with thechoir, taking the sheet music
out of the equation was one ofthe most painful things I've had
to do in my entire career as amusic educator, but it was
crystal clear to me that thatwas a barrier that kept people
(11:12):
out. It. What it does is it, ifsomeone is not music literate,
it makes them feel that they arenot smart enough to belong in
that space, that they haveremedial work to do to rise to
the standard of belonging. And Imean, I love I love notation. I
(11:33):
you know, I write my ownnotation. I do it for myself,
because that is the language Ispeak. But I try most of the
time, I try really hard to toteach in a way that that allows
people to feel like who they areis enough. And I think that
that's a really importantcharacteristic of belonging, is
(11:55):
allowing people to feel thatthey are enough in that space.
Because if we can start fromthat space, then we can grow.
And ultimately, I probably amgoing to sneak in with my with
the Tacoma refugee choir, alittle bit of notation every
once in a while, because I wantthem to get there. But it's only
because I've established so muchof this time saying we're good
(12:17):
here you are enough at thisspace, and let's see if we can
add another layer of knowledgeto that, whereas most of the
time it's taught as okay, weneed to learn these skills SO
that you can participate.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (12:30):
So we're really expanding the notion of
what literacy is in musiceducation. And go ahead, yeah,
Erin Guinup (12:37):
and literacy like, I think I heard a podcast once
it was really fascinating thattalked about our concept of
what, even music theory andliteracy, is fairly limited to a
piece of paper. But do we talkabout the dances that are
associated with the rhythms thatthe the cultural traditions that
would be associated with thosepercussive rhythms? Are we
(12:59):
thinking about how how movementis integrated in those pieces.
Are we thinking of the artworkand the other practices that
would be integrated with thatpractice? So, I mean, you could
go on and on with pieces that wedon't include. I was recently on
my trip. I was talking tosomeone in London, and this
(13:22):
woman, an African immigrant,spoke of how they use solfege
and but the sheet musicperplexed her. And I thought,
Oh, wow. It didn't even occur tome that you.. but it's a
different kind of solfege. Butmy thought was, well, I would
really love to learn this kindof solfege, now I have to ask my
(13:43):
members to see if any of themknow this different kind of
solfege system, because maybe Ihave another language to
communicate with.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (13:52):
My reflection was that when I went
to Haiti, I was in this largearea outside the school where
for the school day begins, andthis is when the kids who are in
band will take their instrumentsout and just start playing with
each other. And they all had theessential elements band books
because they'd been donated tothe school. It's like, Oh, I
know this. I know essentialelements. And they opened the
(14:15):
page, and they started playingthe essential elements band
tune, but then they went into aHaitian riff immediately. And it
was this, it was thisrealization that, like, there
was this entirely different wayof being musical that I was only
beginning to learn about. And Ithink that was my journey of
openness to a more expansivesense of literacy, which then
(14:37):
maybe also expands the walls ofbelonging in those spaces too.
The book empowering song byAndre De quadros and Emily
Amrein, and the resonance I hearbetween the book and Orlando
Morales philosophy of choralorganizing led me back to this
text. This book seeks todecenter. Choral music making,
(15:01):
re scripting hierarchical modelstoward collective practices of
listening and music making, Theauthors write "without dialog
music educators, or alleducators, for that matter, may
be unaware of the wounds thatpeople hold, their joys, the
identities they inhabit, andtheir tenderness and
(15:25):
vulnerability, all of which arerarely expressed" they later go
on. "Expansive listeningrequires coming into
relationship with an intentionalposture of humility, one that
recognizes the vastness of whatwe do not yet know about being
human. This unknowing can bedisconcerting and disorienting
(15:51):
within a professional field ofpractice that values
decisiveness, expertise andauthority, perhaps the greatest
lesson is for us to learn totake risks compassionately and
to create open ended activitiesthat allow for deep listening as
part of the journey ofvulnerability."
(16:13):
Part of the book takes, takesone of the original texts on
theater as a liberatorypractice, and it asks the
question about like, what canchoral music learn from theater
as a liberatory practice? Andnot to spoil the book too much,
but one of the conclusions thereis that choral music, for too
(16:36):
long, has been top down. It'sbeen there has been one vision
of either the composer or thedirector, and then it's just
there. And there's no place fordialog to go back and forth and
back and forth between theaudience and the performers to
listen to performers stories, aswell as listening to the story
of the composer and asking forchoral music to be more of a
(17:00):
dialogic space. I think that'ssome of what I hear is, I hear
you talk about theater there.
Yeah,
Orlando Morales (17:05):
I want to read that book. It sounds like, right
in line with things that I'mreally interested in right now.
There's, I mean, it's veryfraying, right? Because we're
talking about, it's noteducation that we're talking
about, or, you know, the systemsof education, but it is still
(17:25):
about moving past is that we'rejust depositing information.
We're just depositing music insingers brains, and that you
come in here, shuffle in here,here's the sheet music, and this
is how we sing it, that kind ofthing. And then moving to this
questioning, right? It'sdefinitely something that we try
to bring into Tacoma refugeechoir. I'm not sure that
(17:48):
everybody is realizing that, youknow, is what's happening. And I
don't want to make it about,let's try out this Freirian
system of rehearsal. But I thinkit is important just to be like,
okay, so then this space, we'reall learning, we're all
creating, and try to remove thatthose hierarchies as much as
(18:09):
possible. I'm having this it'sfunny, because at the beginning
of this, this season, we hadsome new members in and we have
some members who come fromcommunity choirs and practice of
their own of choral singing. Andthere was one exercise that we
did where I was like, Okay,y'all know the melody, the basis
(18:31):
of the melody. We kind of treatit as like a head to use some,
you know, jazz phraseologythere, right? And we had done
exercises where it's like, youknow, this is sound circle.
We're just going to tell astory. Let's say a story is
going through the jungle, sobeginning, middle and end, go,
and everybody kind of findstheir way creating their own
(18:53):
sounds and things like that. Sowe do a lot of, you know, those
exercises exist, right? But wedid a level up from that was
like, okay, so we have a melody.
So Why don't y'all, kind of, inways that are very common in
other musical traditions, justimprovise the arrangements of
this and the where we get, whereit comes to a climax, and where
(19:16):
we have... like y'all can dothat. We'll just, we'll just
listen to each other. And Iplayed their, you know, play the
note to put us in pitch, andthen I let them go. But you
could see throughout the courseis that some folks, you know,
they will just naturally startto look at me, you know, and
look for every little cue, youknow, that they can kind of that
(19:37):
baggage that they bring in frombeing in other ensembles, and
how fun it was for me tolovingly be like, I'm not gonna
help you. You got this? Thepoint of this is that we're
listening to each other, right?
And then the music doesn't comefrom me. I'm pointing at myself,
right, or even from a piece ofpaper. We don't we don't have
(19:59):
pieces of paper. You know, inTacoma refugee choir, we don't,
we don't do the sheet musicthing, but just trying to be
like, move the center of theroom, the focus into the center
of the circle, and we practiceit. It's normal for us to
practice in seated in a circle.
That's how we usually haverehearsals. Is that we, we
create that a working spacethat's inclusive in that way and
(20:21):
feels less hierarchical,hopefully so even just orienting
the room so that it's focusedinto a center where nobody's
necessarily sitting. Right isthat the music will be generated
somewhere in the middle byeverybody looking at each other.
But it was, it's funny how, likefolks who are new to the choir,
(20:41):
or even folks who've been withthe choir for a while, they
will, you know, sometimes, justby default, look for somebody in
charge at all times. And that'ssomething that I think is a big
joy to try to deconstruct. It'spretty fun.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (21:00):
Orlando Morales' role as accompanist
further, de centered the idea ofa conductor offering openings
for choir members to finddiverse leaders within
themselves. I asked Erin abouther use of creative
harmonization as a process of decentered decision making within
the group.
(21:21):
So let me, let me read thisquote back to you about building
community harmony. So you cansay it can, it can be a
challenge to break patterns ofhomogeneity and accept
differences as a positive trait,and working from a place of no
notation. You said, breakingdown the process by starting
with rhythms has improved thetexture of our songs and given
(21:41):
members the courage to be evenmore adventurous. Some
strategies include repeatingwords on a single note under the
melody. Melodies are repeatedmembers trying to invent
harmonies. But then I love thislast part that choir members are
encouraged to acknowledgesomeone when they like a sound
that they have added to thetexture. So tell me about how
you've built this philosophy ofharmonies in choir?
Erin Guinup (22:04):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's always evolving, and
it it reflects who is in thatgroup. But I definitely we try
to acknowledge one another whenthere's something that we like
in. So if someone has a goodidea, you know, there's, there's
definitely a, you know, snaps,kind of moment and ooh, Linda
(22:25):
just came up with a good harmonyhere or so forth. Because our
work is so much about devisingour songs. We're always evolving
as well. And someone may have anew idea, and we want to embrace
those ideas or discuss it. Therehave been ideas that we've been
like, that's That's aninteresting idea, and it's
(22:46):
probably not the right fitbecause of so forth, or that
might be too hard. Our workreally does center on devising
the piece, and so when we, whenwe're creating, co creating
together. It's important thateveryone has an opportunity to
give input on those ideas. Onestrategy we used recently was
(23:08):
everyone creating their ownharmonies and then having the
sections come together and thendecide together what version of
that they were going to do. Sothere were lots of ideas, and I
remember the Alto sectionspecifically going, we like this
harmony. We like this harmony.
And then someone said, Well, whydon't we split it? So then they
split their section, so therewas an alto one and alto two.
And they worked. They had tojust change a couple of things,
(23:30):
and then they agreed on that.
And I loved that. I didn'tdecide how this went. They
decided together the harmonythat worked best for them
Orlando Morales (23:40):
We've come to asking folks within the choir be
like, Hey, you don't have anynecessarily, quote, unquote,
conducting experience. But wouldyou want to, you know, try and
do your own thing. Like, like,we'll have a shared language. We
borrow some signs from thegospel world, because that's
(24:03):
something that I'm I'm familiarwith, but they're pretty
universal, you know. And youknow, a podcast is great for
showing hand signals, but, youknow, there's signals for last
time, repeat and Vamp or changekeys and things like that, but
just um inviting folks who areinterested in some creative
(24:27):
leadership opportunities to belike, it's okay if you don't
have experience, but let's haveyou start rehearsing as the the
leader, the conductor of thissong, and then The next song,
there could be a new conductor,or maybe in the next song, we
don't need a conductor, right?
We can just listen to eachother. So I think that's been
(24:51):
really fun, especially this thisseason, to kind of play around
with that and negotiate some ofthe new, some of the new. uh.
Obstacles that might come up,but also knowing that it's, it's
all part of this bigger project,I think, to find out how we can,
(25:11):
yeah, have have an ensemble, achoral ensemble, that is less
reliant on hierarchies andbanking, banking method.
Erin Guinup (25:23):
[music], One of the concepts I've been
(26:58):
learning a lot about this yearis adaptive leadership, and this
idea that leadership, one of thecharacteristics of leadership is
navigating loss. People aren'tnecessarily fearful of change.
They're fearful of loss. What dothey lose in the process? And so
the role of a leader is actuallyto help people understand how to
navigate that loss and see thatthe end goal is worth that loss
(27:23):
that they might experience forwhat they might gain, because
it's well documented that peoplewould much rather hold on to
what they have than risk losingthat even if it's a terrible
piece, if there's so much togain when we're looking at music
and for example, taking the riskto not use sheet music, that
there's a huge amount of lossthat we might feel as How on
(27:46):
earth am I going to do this? I'mgoing to lose all the musical
richness. There's all sorts ofthings that you might imagine
losing. And frankly, some ofthose things you might lose at
first, until the patterns becomeestablished, and then you can
add on to it. So sometimes it'sdipping into the valley and
understanding that there is again to be had there. And so if
(28:08):
a music educator is going totake the risk of incorporating
more of these strategies, theyhave to be able to help the
people they're working withunderstand the losses that they
may experience, that how muchthey will gain. One of the
things I feel like I've gainedas a musician, or some of the
(28:28):
things I memorize so fast now,like I can teach a song in 15
minutes to the choir with multipart harmony, and everyone will
have it memorized. It's suchfast acquisition, and it has
staying power, because musicdoesn't live on a sheet of
paper. I also feel like we canget much more connected
musically and in the bodyquickly, because it's already in
(28:51):
the body right from thebeginning. Personally, as a
musician, I feel like it hashelped me to improvise
differently, to hear harmoniesdifferently, and to pick up
language, actually more quickly,because I've not relied so much
on my eyes, which is my dominantsense, and had to rely on
(29:14):
different senses, including, ofcourse, my ears, but also the
kinesthetic experience.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (29:28):
So you talk about the slowness of
building trust within oftentokenized populations, and I'm
you know, in peace buildingliterature, I've followed Donna
Hicks work on dignity and howdignity and identity are really
central to conflict, and once adignity violation has happened,
it takes a long time and a lotof intention to rebuild from
(29:50):
that. And I think I would, Iwould guess that, you know,
trust is very much related tosenses of dignity and identity.
But talk about some of thesestories. Is about the slowness
of building trust, and what kindof slow work it takes.
Erin Guinup (30:07):
I think there's layers of trust, and you have to
build it, kind of like a reverseonion, where you're just adding
layer and layer of trust. Andunfortunately, like, just like a
knife, it can be cut right backthrough again with a violation,
and so it it does require a lotof consistency of showing up. I
(30:29):
really think having fun is acritical part of building trust.
When you can laugh together, yourecognize your humanity and
there, then there has to be acommon purpose. Why are you even
working together? If there's notunity in what you're trying to
accomplish, then it's incrediblyfragile and not even necessarily
(30:49):
worth sustaining. And I think wesee that in a lot of community
work outside of the arts, wherepeople want to bring together
diversity for the sake ofdiversity, instead of diversity
just being a starting point forbringing together different
perspectives, when we canremember that everything is
about relationships, and so justlike you would be in a
(31:11):
relationship with someone thatyou deeply love, you have to
build those layers of trustknowing that there's been lots
of violations in The past thatgive that person, give some of
these communities more reasonsto distrust than others.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (31:34):
I think I want to go back to place and
space, because you have a reallypowerful story about the choir
singing with the governor, andhow, how, in some ways, music
was a boundary crosser. Again,it was an access point to allow
people who maybe don't feel likethat's a place where they may
(31:55):
have a voice, and then all of asudden there's this change,
there might be a sense of voice.
Could you introduce us to thatstory a little bit?
Erin Guinup (32:03):
Absolutely, I think this was a game changing point
for our choir this year, becausewe've been invited to sing for
the Governor's State of theState address. And prior to it's
a televised event, and prior tothe event, we went down a few
days earlier in the evening, wehad the chambers to ourselves,
(32:23):
so we got to go in the space topractice the national anthem.
And then we were able to just, Ihad the choir just be quiet for
five minutes and think aboutwhat this space meant, and had a
conversation about what it meantthat we were invited into this
space. And I mean, I might getemotional talking about because
(32:45):
the seeing that transformation,that we belong in this space,
that this government speaks forus and that we have, that our
voice matters to the people whoare in this space. It was so
beautiful. People took picturesof themselves, and one of our
(33:06):
members, at the end of the nightsaid, I'm going to sit in one of
these seats someday. And I'm, Imean, that's that came from a
musical experience. And thenwhen we sang for the State of
the State address, they sangwith so much pride. And at the
beginning of a legislativesession where we hope that those
legislators will see these facesthat is a rainbow of of
(33:31):
beautiful people from differentbackgrounds when they're
considering policies. And sowhen they went to go talk to the
governor in the state of and theSpeaker of the House, they knew
exactly what to talk about. TheyI didn't have to speak for them.
They spoke for themselves and itit was perfection. They were
absolutely prepared to speak inthose spaces, because they found
(33:52):
their voice singing, and thenthey knew how to use it. Yeah,
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (33:57):
In this story with the governor, I hear
the resonance of a placetransformed where new voices
state their entrance in having arole in this place, in studying
Edward Ralph and David Seaman, Ihave learned that we inhabit a
particular place, and we play Arole in making the places that
(34:21):
we inhabit, our decisions aboutrelationship, family,
transportation, architecture andthe arts weave together a place,
if a place becomes too generic,too objectified, too fragmented,
Too untrusting, too filled withthe ghosts of traumas.
(34:43):
Inhabitants may experience aplace as a non-place, adrift of
security and belonging. However,as Cara Courage notes, the arts
play a role in knitting togethera place. In an organization like
the Tacoma refugee choir musicalparticipants weave together a
(35:04):
tapestry of place, stitchingmulticolored threads of identity
into resilient, connectivecommunities. In the excerpt to
come Orlando encouraged me tomove beyond language of
reclaiming spaces, taking thetime to invest in all the
(35:24):
cultural practices, all of therelations that surround an art
form, learning to livedifferently and be changed,
Orlando Morales (35:33):
when you kind of look a little like lift the
curtain a little bit, when westart to think about the the
parts of culture that are not asthey're not on the surface and
that we don't notice. So lookingbeyond, like food, and looking
(35:54):
beyond, you know, the sound of akind of music, or, you know, the
the costume that somebody mightbe wearing. And we think about
the less tangible things thatmake that music happen, or make
(36:14):
that, you know, dessert happen,some of the the knowledge of the
technique and the craft and theritual or the stories and
histories that are embedded inin these cultural artifacts and
(36:36):
and we asked the question ofLike, how much of that is
actually a part of of thelandscape now and the
environment, and realize thatactually we might have a lot of
YouTube videos of a kind ofFilipino dance or or a kind of
(36:57):
Filipino dessert, but peopledon't actually know how to
reproduce that in the way thatit was, or how to reproduce that
with the kind of the legacy ofwhy it exists that way in the
first place? So that those typesof questions, I think right now
(37:23):
pop up when we talk about,especially when we were talking
about, like, making space,right? It's, it's great that we
are feeling like, you know, thevibes right now is that, hey,
yeah, it's with diversity. Isgood. We need to have this
(37:45):
representation of things in ourin our curriculums and but it's
important for me to also pushfolks to realize that it goes
deeper than you know, say, I'mtrying to think of a good
example. Okay, so say, if youwant to teach a Filipino folk
(38:07):
song to your class, and thenyou're like, Okay, great. So
here's the sheet music for thistranscribed Filipino folk song,
and then let's learn it. Let'slearn the pronunciation. Watch a
YouTube video to make sure we'redoing it right? That's great,
right? That's a great firststep, but we are missing the
(38:28):
method that it was transmittedin the first place. So like.. I
learned a lot of these folksongs by ear, right by by, you
know, going to a family eventand your uncle being like, Oh,
this is the chord, you know, andthis is and that intro, they'll
go, okay, passacaglia, you gotto play the passacaglia that's
(38:50):
how we say intro, right? And sothere's a craft and a way of
executing that craft that's, Ithink, more important, or even,
you know, if not as important asthe thing that we get in the
end, right? So when we're, youknow, watching a, you know, a
(39:13):
mixed group of of kids singing aFilipino folk song that they
learned on the sheet music,that's great tip of the iceberg.
But I feel like the culturalpractice, some of the ideas, the
grammars, maybe, or like thetechniques, are even more
important, because if you havethose crafts and techniques,
(39:33):
then you can reproduce music inthat style. It's not even just
about authenticity. To me, it'sabout preserving human
experience. And so that's thespace that I really, I'm really
interested in carving out rightnow. And so in not just like in
Tacoma refugee choir, forinstance, it's really important
(39:54):
for me to have culture bearersbe the authority you. And we've
come to situations wheresomebody might be like, Okay,
well, is that a, you know, thatwe'll have a culture barrier
that's teaching us a song. Andthen somebody say, well, is that
a half note or a whole note, or,you know, what time signature
(40:15):
Are we at? And then so theopportunity for me the TRC
method, is to say, well, youknow, this is not a song that
was written in in kind of theWestern tradition. So really,
there are no half notes andwhole, you know. Let's try to
learn it the way that thisperson is teaching it to us, and
(40:41):
to respect that way, andimportantly, to struggle. So if
you want to know there's,there's, there's reflection
that's involved there. And Ithink reflection is really
important for for this work thatwe're doing, right if you want
to have something translated orinterpreted for you into half
(41:03):
notes and quarter notes. Is itbecause it's going to help you
understand it faster? Is itbecause it's going to make you
feel like you are more incontrol, or that you are in an
environment that you that youare more familiar with? Because
if the answer is yes, and I'mlike, you know that's not
(41:23):
enough, that's not a good enoughreason, right? Because I think
it is important for our projectof understanding other people
and the scope and breadth ofhumanity to commit to struggling
with learning in somebody else'smethod, because that's also
going to put us in their shoes.
What do you think it was like tocome to this country as a asylum
(41:44):
seeker, refugee, migrant, oreven just not from Tacoma? And
so we get that reminder whatit's like, and the beauty in the
struggle, that wonderful feelingis like, when you get it, you
know, and you kind of go throughthat. So I think that's, that's
really important, and that's,that's kind of like, how I
(42:07):
ideally see space being carvedout, is that, yeah, we have time
to reflect on, like, why you'refeeling uncomfortable in that
moment, and then to, like,committing to to that discomfort
in it, knowing that it's part ofit's even more important than
you learning it, quickly, beingconfident in it, or even like
(42:31):
getting the notes. What's moreimportant is us, understanding
that there are other ways tolearn music, and that there are
other ways that in differentcultures that transmit. So I
think, yeah, that's that's aplace, or an example of of how I
(42:52):
hope space is being, you know,more effectively carved out for
for folks and being reclaimed,right? Is that these choir that
spaces, these choral spaces, canwe be places where minds meet
and we compare methods, and we,we've, you know, become code
(43:15):
switchers, right? I think that'sanother, really amazing
opportunity, a potential ofthese spaces.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (43:29):
As we talked about reclaiming spaces,
we moved to Orlando's Filipinoheritage and his work as a music
theater composer to constructstories that complicate the
narrative. One of his musicals,stories the US occupation of the
Philippines, exploring complextextures of oppression. In this
(43:52):
play, Morales explores thestories of the black US Buffalo
Soldiers who defected when therealities of re inscribing
oppression in a different landbecame untenable to personal
conscience.
Orlando Morales (44:09):
It's first and foremost a project in writing
something that my grandparentswould have loved, right? So they
loved Rogers and Hammersteinmusicals. You know, we grew up,
you know, I they would, youknow, whistle and sing songs
from carousel and they, youknow, they loved, they loved
musical theater, you know. And Ididn't really understand how
much at the time, but it was thepopular art form while they were
(44:32):
coming to the United States andwere in the Philippines. So just
knowing, you know, lookingaround and being like, you know,
they, they would have loved tosee something that was about our
experience, told in kind of thisvery American style. And so
that's a project thatspecifically for me is about
(44:53):
like, you know, what if? Whatif? What if? Can we play with
like, pastiches of these formsto poke at people's
understanding, or poke at theways that folks have understood
musical theater or even Americanhistory, the stories that exist
(45:16):
in these peripheries, or thestories of folks that don't
quite fit in the standardnarratives. They're endless.
They're all over the place,right? I feel like they're more
numerous than than the storiesthat we have that that really
reinforce the way that we thinkof America, or reinforce a
(45:38):
certain narrative. It's it's alltoo diverse to kind of
understand, and so I think it'sjust like our The invitation is
to kind of not even have to looktoo far, but like to go after
the stories that complicate andthat enrich long standing
narratives and and to give themtime and to give and to make
(46:02):
them to again borrow like this,this phrase from Woodruff, but
to pay attentionable right likesomething that is worth
watching, right through craftand things like that. So I
definitely think I love the ideaof taking a form like musical
theater, which endures and andengages folks, and has the
(46:26):
ability to take the stories ofquote, unquote, normal people,
like an everyday person, andthen elevate them through music
and then kind of appropriate,right? I will use that term to
appropriate that for my own use.
You know, to tell to complicatea vision of America.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (46:49):
How do we complicate a vision of America
for more conflicting stories,opening greater awareness of
empathy and complexity,embracing strength and beauty
alongside tender mistakes andmissteps, the nuances of our
language and our story makingmatter if we are to break our
(47:10):
limited dichotomies, holdingthis love for nuance. Orlando,
Erin and I talked about the wordrefugee, I sense a deep, ongoing
care about the use of thislanguage from our uncomplicated
stories, Erin noted thedominance of the narrative of
(47:31):
refugee as a symbol oftremendous loss, or the
narrative of a refugee as ahero's journey against all odds,
that dichotomy, short changesour humanization and curiosity
of each other. When we ask thequestions that we wish others
would ask us about our stories,we open the possibility of
(47:56):
stitching together a web ofplace that holds enough room for
us to be as we want to be toeach other as our complex, messy
selves.
Let's build off of that languageof restoring and complication.
And so I want to talk about theword refugee. Yeah, prior to
(48:16):
this, prior to this interview,we talked about our desire for
human centered language here. Sotalk to me about the ethical
demands as we seek to restorethis word refugee. You know,
what are the deficit narrativeswe need to be careful of? When
does one stop being a refugee?
How do we restory or complicatebeyond the boundaries of that
term? Yeah,
Orlando Morales (48:38):
ooh. Well, I would say, if you want to like,
you're not going to find adefinitive answer on this, but
it would be worth, I alwayspoint folks to like. If you want
to kind of understand thecomplexities and the potential
struggles around a term refugee,you can talk to some folks who
(49:00):
have experienced, you know,being a refugee. And as diverse
as you know, human opinions go,you'll have some folks that's
like, I never want to hear thatword again, right? I never want
to be considered a refugeeagain, okay? And so that that
that is a feeling. And then youhave some folks that be like,
Yes, I lived through thatexperience. And I'm, you know,
(49:22):
I'm proud that I came throughit, and I want to help other
folks who are experiencing beinga refugee as well. And this is
the term that we have right nowthat helps us identify who has a
similar experience and who is,by definition, this kind of
person who is seeking a newhome. It's the complexity is,
(49:43):
there's, there's one level ofcomplexity, right? And then
there's this also, kind of likesemantics, right? Definitions of
it is that refugee really isonly one type of of person who.
It, you know, is seeking a newhome, and there's a political
(50:04):
definition to it. And there's,there's by the books, but it's
not necessarily the one thateverybody holds with them, you
know, as they walk around on adaily basis. Only, you know, a
very small number of peopleactually understand the
differences between a refugee,an immigrant, an asylum seeker,
(50:25):
and that these are all differentthings with you know, could have
similar, but usually verydifferent experiences. I mean,
for me, it's just being veryspecific, right? And in our
mission too, knowing that we area choir that is not just
composed of refugees, that iscomposed of allies as well, or,
(50:48):
you know, composed of folks whohave have an ex a refugee
experience. We also have folkswho have an immigrant
experience, right? And so wealso have folks who are like me,
who were born here but have veryrecent in our family histories
an immigrant experience. So Ithink the important thing for
(51:13):
the organization is going to bea continuing discourse, is that
the way that we define ourselvesis in constant conversation with
the folks that we are naming,and so it's important that we
have members in leadership roleswho also have a refugee
experience, and members who arein programming roles and who are
(51:37):
involved in the conversation.
And that's something that we'recontinuing to work to reinforce
and to put into our practice,because if the conversation
starts to turn is like, you knowwhat this ref, you know this
term refugee that we're using,it's not, it doesn't work
anymore for what we're doing.
Then you know it becomes aconversation about what we where
(51:59):
we want to go right now, as itstands, the Tacoma refugee choir
retains that the term refugee inour name as a commitment to
centering those musicalheritages and the and the
leadership and the direction offolks who have a refugee
(52:24):
experience, and that is kind ofthe core of our operating
philosophy, right? Is that folkscoming into the choir to learn
from folks who have a refugeeexperience, because we believe
that is going to make us betterAmericans, better at welcoming
(52:46):
and also helping us make spacefor Those musical traditions
that that folks bring with them.
it's not a term that we uselightly, right? And that we know
(53:09):
that there it, it's triggeringfor some people, and it's it's
something that continues to beon a point of discussion. I
think that's really kind ofinspiring about the organization
as well and the folks that areinvolved in it, is that the work
(53:31):
is what's important, right? Andthe way that we center that work
is hopefully something that isis represented and mirrored in
in the way that we identify theorganization. So I think it's a
continuing conversation. And theimportant thing too, I think, is
(53:51):
that it the name Tacoma refugeechoir currently kind of holds a
banner up for folks toimmediately understand what we
are, right is that, you know,without kind of having to do a
Google search, you hear the nameTacoma refugee choir, and you
got, oh, place, Tacoma, right?
Not Seattle, right? And then weknow we're centering somehow.
(54:13):
There are folks with a refugeeexperience involved, or there's
advocacy there, or there's andthen we have choir singing. So
there's something about the thethe forceful, the emphatic
nature of that name thatcontinues to endure despite
continuing dialog and discourseabout is there a different way
(54:35):
that we identify right now? Andyeah, we'll see what happens as
we go into the future.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (54:43):
May we embrace the profound
togetherness, the meaning ofplace making chosen by the
Tacoma refugee choir. This choirperforms and lives an
alternative vision of the worldthat builds and refuses to
believe that we can be anythingless than compassionate,
connective and creative, and nowwe close this episode in Season
(55:08):
Four that focused on belonging.
This season has held the voicesof performers, neuroscientists,
social psychologists,peacebuilders and
ethnomusicologists, as we haveexplored the multi faceted
textures of what it means tobelong to each other, to
ourselves, to the natural world,to our bodies and as woven into
(55:28):
place. I leave you with thisclosing parting gift of the
Tacoma refugee choir from theirrecent concert
Unknown (55:40):
art matters. Change matters. Thank you for being
here, and if you have been amember at any time of this
choir, We now invite you to comeon the stage and sing our anthem
with us. Thank you all again forbeing here today. Visit the
tables after the concert's over.
We always end our rehearsalswith the same song in our
(56:01):
concerts too. If you are analumni, you heard him get up
here, we want you to sing usthis side's Probably easier
[music singing yesterday].
[music - Everybody lovessomeone][music - Everybody loves
(56:56):
someone].
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (57:17):
Special thanks to Tacoma refugee choir
for the permission to userecordings in this podcast. My
gratitude to Erin Guinup andOrlando Morales for their time
and thoughts in helping me tobring this podcast together, I
am forever grateful for learningof The ongoing, passionate,
dedicated work that happensacross communities.
(58:35):
[music] This is the music andpeacebuilding podcast hosted by
(59:03):
Kevin Shorner Johnson atElizabethtown College. We host a
master of music education withan emphasis in peacebuilding,
thinking deeply. We reclaimspace for connection and care.
Join us at musicpeacebuilding.com
Unknown (59:34):
Let's go be peacemakers, yah, thank you for
coming visit our friends in thelobby. [music]
That empower people and enfranchise people to feel
like they have their creativespirits. Humans have a right to
human expression, a human rightto create. And so how can we
honor this human right to createin a way that doesn't make
people feel like they're notenough, they are enough today to
(00:20):
contribute.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (00:21):
You are listening to season four of the
music and peace buildingpodcast, a podcast season
focused on multi facetedtextures of belonging. Our
podcast explores intersectionsof peacebuilding, sacredness,
community, creativity andimagination through research and
story.
This is part two of a journeyacross two years of
(00:43):
conversations about the Tacomarefugee choir. Erin Guinup was
the founding executive andartistic director of the Tacoma
refugee choir, and is anationally recognized scholar,
performer and clinician. OrlandoMorales is the artistic director
of the choir and a music theatercomposer and director, arts
leader and pianist. Theexecutive director of the Tacoma
(01:07):
refugee choir is J Woody Lotts.
In this part two of anexploration of the Tacoma
refugee choir, we look at themission, constructions of
spaces, empowering song, andfinally, a dialog about who gets
to choose the language thatdefines the stories of who we
are. I asked Erin about themission statement and our need
(01:29):
to move from outsider to Insiderstatus.
So I want to read the missionstatement of the refugee choir
in the book chapter you wrote,you state that the mission
statement of the choiremphasizes the value of
belonging and hope in creating awelcoming community, the
strengths of one's socialnetwork is shown to be a key
(01:50):
indicator of health and successand a sense of belonging. So
this season, we're looking atbelonging, and I think I wanted
to open up with that questionabout places and spaces. So you
have a very interesting storyabout the start of the choir in
which people show up and there'sno refugees in a refugee choir,
and you write very beautifullyabout your realization about why
(02:14):
place and space matters. Socould you open that up for us
about the intersection ofbelonging, place and space?
Erin Guinup (02:21):
Absolutely, I think all we can do actually, is
create spaces, whether that'sphysical space or metaphorical
space. And there are a lot ofbarriers that they face. Some of
them are perceived and some ofthem are real. So in the case of
starting the choir, there weresome very real barriers to that
(02:42):
space being, unfamiliarity, abit of distance, and those
factors need to be overcome inorder for someone to feel
comfortable in that space. Andthen you have the relationships.
And the reality is that firstweek in the choir, a number of
people already knew each other,and so anyone to come into that
(03:03):
space is going to perceivethemselves as an outsider, no
matter if you have thatintention. And so it's
overcoming that creating spacefor someone to quickly go from
outsider to Insider that iscritical in any way that we
work, whether that's at thegrocery store or in their music
(03:23):
ensembles that we're creating.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (03:25):
In her 2020 article on the formation of
the refugee choir, Guinup writesabout an individual with Kurdish
refugee experiences. She writesquote as I was ending the phone
call more discouraged thanbefore he thanked me for
listening and being his friend,I was struck with the clear
(03:47):
realization that the music wehad made together had created an
intimacy of trust that allowedus to develop a deep friendship.
While I could not end violenceand suffering, I could sit with
him, to lift him up while hisheart was breaking, when we feel
powerless to help those we careabout, our friendship and
(04:11):
support is sometimes the onlyresources we have to give, and
perhaps the most valuable. Heand I would never have developed
this powerful relationship if wehad not first sung together. The
joining of voices and song maybe a grounding of breath and
(04:33):
presence, opening intimacies oftrust and relationship
Unknown (04:37):
[From documentary on TRC] practices in person, I love
the song that everyone's saying,Hello, friend. How are you
today?
A friend of mine, I think hisname is Clovis. He told me about
the refugee choir about aboutthree years ago, I was
searching. I was searching for achoral
group. Over the course of thislast year, the Tacoma refugee
(04:57):
choir has become kind of like asecond home to me. We
moved out from, I was in afoster parent for foster care.
So I moved out, you know, Ibrand new to, you know, to
everything, and I was kind oflost. Honestly, I was
one of the first people to jointhe choir. Once I get there,
then I begin to click in. And IWhat helps are the people.
(05:22):
I really wanted to be part of acommunity that welcomed people
regardless of where they werefrom, because I could see how
there was a lot of division inthe world, and I wanted to help
bring some unity to my small,little corner. Before I
joined the choir, I was reallyself conscious, really unsure of
(05:45):
myself for what I wanted to do.
And then I joined the choir, andI found a place where I could
just be myself and expressmyself how I want to and not
worry about being being judgedby others, the little
by little that you know, roomsare growing for me to be what
you know I should be. Notonly does this choir community
(06:06):
make them feel a sense ofbelonging within the choir, but
they feel a sense of belongingin this country that they had
not yet felt. And so I alwaysfeel like I want to be part of
that. I would love to be part ofwhat makes someone feel like
they belonghere. Support of the community.
When you are in, when you'resad, or if you need help, it's
(06:33):
very important.
But trust me, when we're singingin a group, I feel like I'm a
good singer, so I'm motivatedand and the songs, my stories,
and the love that everyone inthe choir shows to each other
kind of just fills you up withlove and joy. And at the end of
(06:55):
the rehearsal, you're like abrand new man, and you go to
sleep and really nice, expectingfor better things tomorrow, even
if you cannot sing, you can comeand listen and somebody's going
to be lifted up. That's just howthat is. I'm learning about
myselfThe choir is everything to me.
It has become part of who I amand become part of my identity,
(07:21):
because I love these people somuch.
The choir gave me, beside mypersonal life, my family and my
work, the choir became like havea room in my mind what I think
about every day, and I don'tthink about as a job or
(07:42):
something. It is a place where Iwant to go. I can share anything
I want to share, and people willstill take it, even if I doubt
myself,
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (07:52):
they lift me up.
What resonates from me as I as Ithink about space and place that
resonate with you probably themost impactful peacebuilding
work I think I've ever done waswhen we had a Puerto Rican bomba
y plena group come toElizabethtown college. And I
had, I had recognized thatcentral Pennsylvania, at that
(08:14):
time, was the second largestsite of Puerto Rican migration
in the United States, especiallyfollowing Hurricane Maria. And
started getting into thisliterature about the re-
territorialization of space,like a college campus doesn't
really feel like a Puerto Ricanspace in many senses, and it's a
huge barrier, because maybe if Iidentify as Puerto Rican, I
(08:36):
wouldn't see myself as thatbeing my space. And we
developed, like five schoolbusses to come to the concert
hall. Everybody came in. Themusic started. It started to
heat up. But when that spacebecame a Puerto Rican space, was
when the flags came out, theCoqui calls came out, and then
the the African diasporatradition of call response like
(08:59):
comes out between the band andpeople, and it was this powerful
moment for me to recognize how aspace can be re-territorialized
by a community, and then all ofa sudden, it becomes a space for
this, this group, plus thisgroup and the the radical work
of peacebuilding that happensthere. I don't know if any of
(09:21):
that resonates with you. No, Iabsolutely,
Erin Guinup (09:22):
I absolutely love this. I that idea, because I
think we have, you know,beautiful venues throughout the
country that people keep saying,why aren't people not coming
into that space? And this ideais absolutely true. And I think
we can look at the other side ofthe coin of taking our music
into other spaces. And there'slots of people doing this, of
(09:44):
you know, hosting concerts inunconventional spaces in the
communities. And I think thatthat's super important as well.
That one thing that we've talkedabout in our team is it's so
important for us not to justexpect people to come to us. For
us to go, go to them, and notjust go to them with our
programming, but go to theirevents, show up in their
(10:07):
community pieces, because reallywhat we're looking for are
relationships. That is whatbelonging is. It's a
relationship. It's which meansit's not one way. It's not
transactional. It is. It meansshowing up to the things that
matter for them as well, andbeing humble enough to listen if
(10:29):
our programming needs to changein order to meet the need, even
if it's uncomfortable for us. Ithink one thing I've really
tried to embrace is this idea ofwillingness to be uncomfortable,
not to a point of complete selfsacrifice all the time, but I
have made lots of changes in theway that I teach in order to
(10:51):
accommodate our needs. Forexample, we don't use sheet
music most of the time with thechoir, taking the sheet music
out of the equation was one ofthe most painful things I've had
to do in my entire career as amusic educator, but it was
crystal clear to me that thatwas a barrier that kept people
(11:12):
out. It. What it does is it, ifsomeone is not music literate,
it makes them feel that they arenot smart enough to belong in
that space, that they haveremedial work to do to rise to
the standard of belonging. And Imean, I love I love notation. I
(11:33):
you know, I write my ownnotation. I do it for myself,
because that is the language Ispeak. But I try most of the
time, I try really hard to toteach in a way that that allows
people to feel like who they areis enough. And I think that
that's a really importantcharacteristic of belonging, is
(11:55):
allowing people to feel thatthey are enough in that space.
Because if we can start fromthat space, then we can grow.
And ultimately, I probably amgoing to sneak in with my with
the Tacoma refugee choir, alittle bit of notation every
once in a while, because I wantthem to get there. But it's only
because I've established so muchof this time saying we're good
(12:17):
here you are enough at thisspace, and let's see if we can
add another layer of knowledgeto that, whereas most of the
time it's taught as okay, weneed to learn these skills SO
that you can participate.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (12:30):
So we're really expanding the notion of
what literacy is in musiceducation. And go ahead, yeah,
Erin Guinup (12:37):
and literacy like, I think I heard a podcast once
it was really fascinating thattalked about our concept of
what, even music theory andliteracy, is fairly limited to a
piece of paper. But do we talkabout the dances that are
associated with the rhythms thatthe the cultural traditions that
would be associated with thosepercussive rhythms? Are we
(12:59):
thinking about how how movementis integrated in those pieces.
Are we thinking of the artworkand the other practices that
would be integrated with thatpractice? So, I mean, you could
go on and on with pieces that wedon't include. I was recently on
my trip. I was talking tosomeone in London, and this
(13:22):
woman, an African immigrant,spoke of how they use solfege
and but the sheet musicperplexed her. And I thought,
Oh, wow. It didn't even occur tome that you.. but it's a
different kind of solfege. Butmy thought was, well, I would
really love to learn this kindof solfege, now I have to ask my
(13:43):
members to see if any of themknow this different kind of
solfege system, because maybe Ihave another language to
communicate with.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (13:52):
My reflection was that when I went
to Haiti, I was in this largearea outside the school where
for the school day begins, andthis is when the kids who are in
band will take their instrumentsout and just start playing with
each other. And they all had theessential elements band books
because they'd been donated tothe school. It's like, Oh, I
know this. I know essentialelements. And they opened the
(14:15):
page, and they started playingthe essential elements band
tune, but then they went into aHaitian riff immediately. And it
was this, it was thisrealization that, like, there
was this entirely different wayof being musical that I was only
beginning to learn about. And Ithink that was my journey of
openness to a more expansivesense of literacy, which then
(14:37):
maybe also expands the walls ofbelonging in those spaces too.
The book empowering song byAndre De quadros and Emily
Amrein, and the resonance I hearbetween the book and Orlando
Morales philosophy of choralorganizing led me back to this
text. This book seeks todecenter. Choral music making,
(15:01):
re scripting hierarchical modelstoward collective practices of
listening and music making, Theauthors write "without dialog
music educators, or alleducators, for that matter, may
be unaware of the wounds thatpeople hold, their joys, the
identities they inhabit, andtheir tenderness and
(15:25):
vulnerability, all of which arerarely expressed" they later go
on. "Expansive listeningrequires coming into
relationship with an intentionalposture of humility, one that
recognizes the vastness of whatwe do not yet know about being
human. This unknowing can bedisconcerting and disorienting
(15:51):
within a professional field ofpractice that values
decisiveness, expertise andauthority, perhaps the greatest
lesson is for us to learn totake risks compassionately and
to create open ended activitiesthat allow for deep listening as
part of the journey ofvulnerability."
(16:13):
Part of the book takes, takesone of the original texts on
theater as a liberatorypractice, and it asks the
question about like, what canchoral music learn from theater
as a liberatory practice? Andnot to spoil the book too much,
but one of the conclusions thereis that choral music, for too
(16:36):
long, has been top down. It'sbeen there has been one vision
of either the composer or thedirector, and then it's just
there. And there's no place fordialog to go back and forth and
back and forth between theaudience and the performers to
listen to performers stories, aswell as listening to the story
of the composer and asking forchoral music to be more of a
(17:00):
dialogic space. I think that'ssome of what I hear is, I hear
you talk about theater there.
Yeah,
Orlando Morales (17:05):
I want to read that book. It sounds like, right
in line with things that I'mreally interested in right now.
There's, I mean, it's veryfraying, right? Because we're
talking about, it's noteducation that we're talking
about, or, you know, the systemsof education, but it is still
(17:25):
about moving past is that we'rejust depositing information.
We're just depositing music insingers brains, and that you
come in here, shuffle in here,here's the sheet music, and this
is how we sing it, that kind ofthing. And then moving to this
questioning, right? It'sdefinitely something that we try
to bring into Tacoma refugeechoir. I'm not sure that
(17:48):
everybody is realizing that, youknow, is what's happening. And I
don't want to make it about,let's try out this Freirian
system of rehearsal. But I thinkit is important just to be like,
okay, so then this space, we'reall learning, we're all
creating, and try to remove thatthose hierarchies as much as
(18:09):
possible. I'm having this it'sfunny, because at the beginning
of this, this season, we hadsome new members in and we have
some members who come fromcommunity choirs and practice of
their own of choral singing. Andthere was one exercise that we
did where I was like, Okay,y'all know the melody, the basis
(18:31):
of the melody. We kind of treatit as like a head to use some,
you know, jazz phraseologythere, right? And we had done
exercises where it's like, youknow, this is sound circle.
We're just going to tell astory. Let's say a story is
going through the jungle, sobeginning, middle and end, go,
and everybody kind of findstheir way creating their own
(18:53):
sounds and things like that. Sowe do a lot of, you know, those
exercises exist, right? But wedid a level up from that was
like, okay, so we have a melody.
So Why don't y'all, kind of, inways that are very common in
other musical traditions, justimprovise the arrangements of
this and the where we get, whereit comes to a climax, and where
(19:16):
we have... like y'all can dothat. We'll just, we'll just
listen to each other. And Iplayed their, you know, play the
note to put us in pitch, andthen I let them go. But you
could see throughout the courseis that some folks, you know,
they will just naturally startto look at me, you know, and
look for every little cue, youknow, that they can kind of that
(19:37):
baggage that they bring in frombeing in other ensembles, and
how fun it was for me tolovingly be like, I'm not gonna
help you. You got this? Thepoint of this is that we're
listening to each other, right?
And then the music doesn't comefrom me. I'm pointing at myself,
right, or even from a piece ofpaper. We don't we don't have
(19:59):
pieces of paper. You know, inTacoma refugee choir, we don't,
we don't do the sheet musicthing, but just trying to be
like, move the center of theroom, the focus into the center
of the circle, and we practiceit. It's normal for us to
practice in seated in a circle.
That's how we usually haverehearsals. Is that we, we
create that a working spacethat's inclusive in that way and
(20:21):
feels less hierarchical,hopefully so even just orienting
the room so that it's focusedinto a center where nobody's
necessarily sitting. Right isthat the music will be generated
somewhere in the middle byeverybody looking at each other.
But it was, it's funny how, likefolks who are new to the choir,
(20:41):
or even folks who've been withthe choir for a while, they
will, you know, sometimes, justby default, look for somebody in
charge at all times. And that'ssomething that I think is a big
joy to try to deconstruct. It'spretty fun.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (21:00):
Orlando Morales' role as accompanist
further, de centered the idea ofa conductor offering openings
for choir members to finddiverse leaders within
themselves. I asked Erin abouther use of creative
harmonization as a process of decentered decision making within
the group.
(21:21):
So let me, let me read thisquote back to you about building
community harmony. So you cansay it can, it can be a
challenge to break patterns ofhomogeneity and accept
differences as a positive trait,and working from a place of no
notation. You said, breakingdown the process by starting
with rhythms has improved thetexture of our songs and given
(21:41):
members the courage to be evenmore adventurous. Some
strategies include repeatingwords on a single note under the
melody. Melodies are repeatedmembers trying to invent
harmonies. But then I love thislast part that choir members are
encouraged to acknowledgesomeone when they like a sound
that they have added to thetexture. So tell me about how
you've built this philosophy ofharmonies in choir?
Erin Guinup (22:04):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's always evolving, and
it it reflects who is in thatgroup. But I definitely we try
to acknowledge one another whenthere's something that we like
in. So if someone has a goodidea, you know, there's, there's
definitely a, you know, snaps,kind of moment and ooh, Linda
(22:25):
just came up with a good harmonyhere or so forth. Because our
work is so much about devisingour songs. We're always evolving
as well. And someone may have anew idea, and we want to embrace
those ideas or discuss it. Therehave been ideas that we've been
like, that's That's aninteresting idea, and it's
(22:46):
probably not the right fitbecause of so forth, or that
might be too hard. Our workreally does center on devising
the piece, and so when we, whenwe're creating, co creating
together. It's important thateveryone has an opportunity to
give input on those ideas. Onestrategy we used recently was
(23:08):
everyone creating their ownharmonies and then having the
sections come together and thendecide together what version of
that they were going to do. Sothere were lots of ideas, and I
remember the Alto sectionspecifically going, we like this
harmony. We like this harmony.
And then someone said, Well, whydon't we split it? So then they
split their section, so therewas an alto one and alto two.
And they worked. They had tojust change a couple of things,
(23:30):
and then they agreed on that.
And I loved that. I didn'tdecide how this went. They
decided together the harmonythat worked best for them
Orlando Morales (23:40):
We've come to asking folks within the choir be
like, Hey, you don't have anynecessarily, quote, unquote,
conducting experience. But wouldyou want to, you know, try and
do your own thing. Like, like,we'll have a shared language. We
borrow some signs from thegospel world, because that's
(24:03):
something that I'm I'm familiarwith, but they're pretty
universal, you know. And youknow, a podcast is great for
showing hand signals, but, youknow, there's signals for last
time, repeat and Vamp or changekeys and things like that, but
just um inviting folks who areinterested in some creative
(24:27):
leadership opportunities to belike, it's okay if you don't
have experience, but let's haveyou start rehearsing as the the
leader, the conductor of thissong, and then The next song,
there could be a new conductor,or maybe in the next song, we
don't need a conductor, right?
We can just listen to eachother. So I think that's been
(24:51):
really fun, especially this thisseason, to kind of play around
with that and negotiate some ofthe new, some of the new. uh.
Obstacles that might come up,but also knowing that it's, it's
all part of this bigger project,I think, to find out how we can,
(25:11):
yeah, have have an ensemble, achoral ensemble, that is less
reliant on hierarchies andbanking, banking method.
Erin Guinup (25:23):
[music], One of the concepts I've been
(26:58):
learning a lot about this yearis adaptive leadership, and this
idea that leadership, one of thecharacteristics of leadership is
navigating loss. People aren'tnecessarily fearful of change.
They're fearful of loss. What dothey lose in the process? And so
the role of a leader is actuallyto help people understand how to
navigate that loss and see thatthe end goal is worth that loss
(27:23):
that they might experience forwhat they might gain, because
it's well documented that peoplewould much rather hold on to
what they have than risk losingthat even if it's a terrible
piece, if there's so much togain when we're looking at music
and for example, taking the riskto not use sheet music, that
there's a huge amount of lossthat we might feel as How on
(27:46):
earth am I going to do this? I'mgoing to lose all the musical
richness. There's all sorts ofthings that you might imagine
losing. And frankly, some ofthose things you might lose at
first, until the patterns becomeestablished, and then you can
add on to it. So sometimes it'sdipping into the valley and
understanding that there is again to be had there. And so if
(28:08):
a music educator is going totake the risk of incorporating
more of these strategies, theyhave to be able to help the
people they're working withunderstand the losses that they
may experience, that how muchthey will gain. One of the
things I feel like I've gainedas a musician, or some of the
(28:28):
things I memorize so fast now,like I can teach a song in 15
minutes to the choir with multipart harmony, and everyone will
have it memorized. It's suchfast acquisition, and it has
staying power, because musicdoesn't live on a sheet of
paper. I also feel like we canget much more connected
musically and in the bodyquickly, because it's already in
(28:51):
the body right from thebeginning. Personally, as a
musician, I feel like it hashelped me to improvise
differently, to hear harmoniesdifferently, and to pick up
language, actually more quickly,because I've not relied so much
on my eyes, which is my dominantsense, and had to rely on
(29:14):
different senses, including, ofcourse, my ears, but also the
kinesthetic experience.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (29:28):
So you talk about the slowness of
building trust within oftentokenized populations, and I'm
you know, in peace buildingliterature, I've followed Donna
Hicks work on dignity and howdignity and identity are really
central to conflict, and once adignity violation has happened,
it takes a long time and a lotof intention to rebuild from
(29:50):
that. And I think I would, Iwould guess that, you know,
trust is very much related tosenses of dignity and identity.
But talk about some of thesestories. Is about the slowness
of building trust, and what kindof slow work it takes.
Erin Guinup (30:07):
I think there's layers of trust, and you have to
build it, kind of like a reverseonion, where you're just adding
layer and layer of trust. Andunfortunately, like, just like a
knife, it can be cut right backthrough again with a violation,
and so it it does require a lotof consistency of showing up. I
(30:29):
really think having fun is acritical part of building trust.
When you can laugh together, yourecognize your humanity and
there, then there has to be acommon purpose. Why are you even
working together? If there's notunity in what you're trying to
accomplish, then it's incrediblyfragile and not even necessarily
(30:49):
worth sustaining. And I think wesee that in a lot of community
work outside of the arts, wherepeople want to bring together
diversity for the sake ofdiversity, instead of diversity
just being a starting point forbringing together different
perspectives, when we canremember that everything is
about relationships, and so justlike you would be in a
(31:11):
relationship with someone thatyou deeply love, you have to
build those layers of trustknowing that there's been lots
of violations in The past thatgive that person, give some of
these communities more reasonsto distrust than others.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (31:34):
I think I want to go back to place and
space, because you have a reallypowerful story about the choir
singing with the governor, andhow, how, in some ways, music
was a boundary crosser. Again,it was an access point to allow
people who maybe don't feel likethat's a place where they may
(31:55):
have a voice, and then all of asudden there's this change,
there might be a sense of voice.
Could you introduce us to thatstory a little bit?
Erin Guinup (32:03):
Absolutely, I think this was a game changing point
for our choir this year, becausewe've been invited to sing for
the Governor's State of theState address. And prior to it's
a televised event, and prior tothe event, we went down a few
days earlier in the evening, wehad the chambers to ourselves,
(32:23):
so we got to go in the space topractice the national anthem.
And then we were able to just, Ihad the choir just be quiet for
five minutes and think aboutwhat this space meant, and had a
conversation about what it meantthat we were invited into this
space. And I mean, I might getemotional talking about because
(32:45):
the seeing that transformation,that we belong in this space,
that this government speaks forus and that we have, that our
voice matters to the people whoare in this space. It was so
beautiful. People took picturesof themselves, and one of our
(33:06):
members, at the end of the nightsaid, I'm going to sit in one of
these seats someday. And I'm, Imean, that's that came from a
musical experience. And thenwhen we sang for the State of
the State address, they sangwith so much pride. And at the
beginning of a legislativesession where we hope that those
legislators will see these facesthat is a rainbow of of
(33:31):
beautiful people from differentbackgrounds when they're
considering policies. And sowhen they went to go talk to the
governor in the state of and theSpeaker of the House, they knew
exactly what to talk about. TheyI didn't have to speak for them.
They spoke for themselves and itit was perfection. They were
absolutely prepared to speak inthose spaces, because they found
(33:52):
their voice singing, and thenthey knew how to use it. Yeah,
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (33:57):
In this story with the governor, I hear
the resonance of a placetransformed where new voices
state their entrance in having arole in this place, in studying
Edward Ralph and David Seaman, Ihave learned that we inhabit a
particular place, and we play Arole in making the places that
(34:21):
we inhabit, our decisions aboutrelationship, family,
transportation, architecture andthe arts weave together a place,
if a place becomes too generic,too objectified, too fragmented,
Too untrusting, too filled withthe ghosts of traumas.
(34:43):
Inhabitants may experience aplace as a non-place, adrift of
security and belonging. However,as Cara Courage notes, the arts
play a role in knitting togethera place. In an organization like
the Tacoma refugee choir musicalparticipants weave together a
(35:04):
tapestry of place, stitchingmulticolored threads of identity
into resilient, connectivecommunities. In the excerpt to
come Orlando encouraged me tomove beyond language of
reclaiming spaces, taking thetime to invest in all the
(35:24):
cultural practices, all of therelations that surround an art
form, learning to livedifferently and be changed,
Orlando Morales (35:33):
when you kind of look a little like lift the
curtain a little bit, when westart to think about the the
parts of culture that are not asthey're not on the surface and
that we don't notice. So lookingbeyond, like food, and looking
(35:54):
beyond, you know, the sound of akind of music, or, you know, the
the costume that somebody mightbe wearing. And we think about
the less tangible things thatmake that music happen, or make
(36:14):
that, you know, dessert happen,some of the the knowledge of the
technique and the craft and theritual or the stories and
histories that are embedded inin these cultural artifacts and
(36:36):
and we asked the question ofLike, how much of that is
actually a part of of thelandscape now and the
environment, and realize thatactually we might have a lot of
YouTube videos of a kind ofFilipino dance or or a kind of
(36:57):
Filipino dessert, but peopledon't actually know how to
reproduce that in the way thatit was, or how to reproduce that
with the kind of the legacy ofwhy it exists that way in the
first place? So that those typesof questions, I think right now
(37:23):
pop up when we talk about,especially when we were talking
about, like, making space,right? It's, it's great that we
are feeling like, you know, thevibes right now is that, hey,
yeah, it's with diversity. Isgood. We need to have this
(37:45):
representation of things in ourin our curriculums and but it's
important for me to also pushfolks to realize that it goes
deeper than you know, say, I'mtrying to think of a good
example. Okay, so say, if youwant to teach a Filipino folk
(38:07):
song to your class, and thenyou're like, Okay, great. So
here's the sheet music for thistranscribed Filipino folk song,
and then let's learn it. Let'slearn the pronunciation. Watch a
YouTube video to make sure we'redoing it right? That's great,
right? That's a great firststep, but we are missing the
(38:28):
method that it was transmittedin the first place. So like.. I
learned a lot of these folksongs by ear, right by by, you
know, going to a family eventand your uncle being like, Oh,
this is the chord, you know, andthis is and that intro, they'll
go, okay, passacaglia, you gotto play the passacaglia that's
(38:50):
how we say intro, right? And sothere's a craft and a way of
executing that craft that's, Ithink, more important, or even,
you know, if not as important asthe thing that we get in the
end, right? So when we're, youknow, watching a, you know, a
(39:13):
mixed group of of kids singing aFilipino folk song that they
learned on the sheet music,that's great tip of the iceberg.
But I feel like the culturalpractice, some of the ideas, the
grammars, maybe, or like thetechniques, are even more
important, because if you havethose crafts and techniques,
(39:33):
then you can reproduce music inthat style. It's not even just
about authenticity. To me, it'sabout preserving human
experience. And so that's thespace that I really, I'm really
interested in carving out rightnow. And so in not just like in
Tacoma refugee choir, forinstance, it's really important
(39:54):
for me to have culture bearersbe the authority you. And we've
come to situations wheresomebody might be like, Okay,
well, is that a, you know, thatwe'll have a culture barrier
that's teaching us a song. Andthen somebody say, well, is that
a half note or a whole note, or,you know, what time signature
(40:15):
Are we at? And then so theopportunity for me the TRC
method, is to say, well, youknow, this is not a song that
was written in in kind of theWestern tradition. So really,
there are no half notes andwhole, you know. Let's try to
learn it the way that thisperson is teaching it to us, and
(40:41):
to respect that way, andimportantly, to struggle. So if
you want to know there's,there's, there's reflection
that's involved there. And Ithink reflection is really
important for for this work thatwe're doing, right if you want
to have something translated orinterpreted for you into half
(41:03):
notes and quarter notes. Is itbecause it's going to help you
understand it faster? Is itbecause it's going to make you
feel like you are more incontrol, or that you are in an
environment that you that youare more familiar with? Because
if the answer is yes, and I'mlike, you know that's not
(41:23):
enough, that's not a good enoughreason, right? Because I think
it is important for our projectof understanding other people
and the scope and breadth ofhumanity to commit to struggling
with learning in somebody else'smethod, because that's also
going to put us in their shoes.
What do you think it was like tocome to this country as a asylum
(41:44):
seeker, refugee, migrant, oreven just not from Tacoma? And
so we get that reminder whatit's like, and the beauty in the
struggle, that wonderful feelingis like, when you get it, you
know, and you kind of go throughthat. So I think that's, that's
really important, and that's,that's kind of like, how I
(42:07):
ideally see space being carvedout, is that, yeah, we have time
to reflect on, like, why you'refeeling uncomfortable in that
moment, and then to, like,committing to to that discomfort
in it, knowing that it's part ofit's even more important than
you learning it, quickly, beingconfident in it, or even like
(42:31):
getting the notes. What's moreimportant is us, understanding
that there are other ways tolearn music, and that there are
other ways that in differentcultures that transmit. So I
think, yeah, that's that's aplace, or an example of of how I
(42:52):
hope space is being, you know,more effectively carved out for
for folks and being reclaimed,right? Is that these choir that
spaces, these choral spaces, canwe be places where minds meet
and we compare methods, and we,we've, you know, become code
(43:15):
switchers, right? I think that'sanother, really amazing
opportunity, a potential ofthese spaces.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (43:29):
As we talked about reclaiming spaces,
we moved to Orlando's Filipinoheritage and his work as a music
theater composer to constructstories that complicate the
narrative. One of his musicals,stories the US occupation of the
Philippines, exploring complextextures of oppression. In this
(43:52):
play, Morales explores thestories of the black US Buffalo
Soldiers who defected when therealities of re inscribing
oppression in a different landbecame untenable to personal
conscience.
Orlando Morales (44:09):
It's first and foremost a project in writing
something that my grandparentswould have loved, right? So they
loved Rogers and Hammersteinmusicals. You know, we grew up,
you know, I they would, youknow, whistle and sing songs
from carousel and they, youknow, they loved, they loved
musical theater, you know. And Ididn't really understand how
much at the time, but it was thepopular art form while they were
(44:32):
coming to the United States andwere in the Philippines. So just
knowing, you know, lookingaround and being like, you know,
they, they would have loved tosee something that was about our
experience, told in kind of thisvery American style. And so
that's a project thatspecifically for me is about
(44:53):
like, you know, what if? Whatif? What if? Can we play with
like, pastiches of these formsto poke at people's
understanding, or poke at theways that folks have understood
musical theater or even Americanhistory, the stories that exist
(45:16):
in these peripheries, or thestories of folks that don't
quite fit in the standardnarratives. They're endless.
They're all over the place,right? I feel like they're more
numerous than than the storiesthat we have that that really
reinforce the way that we thinkof America, or reinforce a
(45:38):
certain narrative. It's it's alltoo diverse to kind of
understand, and so I think it'sjust like our The invitation is
to kind of not even have to looktoo far, but like to go after
the stories that complicate andthat enrich long standing
narratives and and to give themtime and to give and to make
(46:02):
them to again borrow like this,this phrase from Woodruff, but
to pay attentionable right likesomething that is worth
watching, right through craftand things like that. So I
definitely think I love the ideaof taking a form like musical
theater, which endures and andengages folks, and has the
(46:26):
ability to take the stories ofquote, unquote, normal people,
like an everyday person, andthen elevate them through music
and then kind of appropriate,right? I will use that term to
appropriate that for my own use.
You know, to tell to complicatea vision of America.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (46:49):
How do we complicate a vision of America
for more conflicting stories,opening greater awareness of
empathy and complexity,embracing strength and beauty
alongside tender mistakes andmissteps, the nuances of our
language and our story makingmatter if we are to break our
(47:10):
limited dichotomies, holdingthis love for nuance. Orlando,
Erin and I talked about the wordrefugee, I sense a deep, ongoing
care about the use of thislanguage from our uncomplicated
stories, Erin noted thedominance of the narrative of
(47:31):
refugee as a symbol oftremendous loss, or the
narrative of a refugee as ahero's journey against all odds,
that dichotomy, short changesour humanization and curiosity
of each other. When we ask thequestions that we wish others
would ask us about our stories,we open the possibility of
(47:56):
stitching together a web ofplace that holds enough room for
us to be as we want to be toeach other as our complex, messy
selves.
Let's build off of that languageof restoring and complication.
And so I want to talk about theword refugee. Yeah, prior to
(48:16):
this, prior to this interview,we talked about our desire for
human centered language here. Sotalk to me about the ethical
demands as we seek to restorethis word refugee. You know,
what are the deficit narrativeswe need to be careful of? When
does one stop being a refugee?
How do we restory or complicatebeyond the boundaries of that
term? Yeah,
Orlando Morales (48:38):
ooh. Well, I would say, if you want to like,
you're not going to find adefinitive answer on this, but
it would be worth, I alwayspoint folks to like. If you want
to kind of understand thecomplexities and the potential
struggles around a term refugee,you can talk to some folks who
(49:00):
have experienced, you know,being a refugee. And as diverse
as you know, human opinions go,you'll have some folks that's
like, I never want to hear thatword again, right? I never want
to be considered a refugeeagain, okay? And so that that
that is a feeling. And then youhave some folks that be like,
Yes, I lived through thatexperience. And I'm, you know,
(49:22):
I'm proud that I came throughit, and I want to help other
folks who are experiencing beinga refugee as well. And this is
the term that we have right nowthat helps us identify who has a
similar experience and who is,by definition, this kind of
person who is seeking a newhome. It's the complexity is,
(49:43):
there's, there's one level ofcomplexity, right? And then
there's this also, kind of likesemantics, right? Definitions of
it is that refugee really isonly one type of of person who.
It, you know, is seeking a newhome, and there's a political
(50:04):
definition to it. And there's,there's by the books, but it's
not necessarily the one thateverybody holds with them, you
know, as they walk around on adaily basis. Only, you know, a
very small number of peopleactually understand the
differences between a refugee,an immigrant, an asylum seeker,
(50:25):
and that these are all differentthings with you know, could have
similar, but usually verydifferent experiences. I mean,
for me, it's just being veryspecific, right? And in our
mission too, knowing that we area choir that is not just
composed of refugees, that iscomposed of allies as well, or,
(50:48):
you know, composed of folks whohave have an ex a refugee
experience. We also have folkswho have an immigrant
experience, right? And so wealso have folks who are like me,
who were born here but have veryrecent in our family histories
an immigrant experience. So Ithink the important thing for
(51:13):
the organization is going to bea continuing discourse, is that
the way that we define ourselvesis in constant conversation with
the folks that we are naming,and so it's important that we
have members in leadership roleswho also have a refugee
experience, and members who arein programming roles and who are
(51:37):
involved in the conversation.
And that's something that we'recontinuing to work to reinforce
and to put into our practice,because if the conversation
starts to turn is like, you knowwhat this ref, you know this
term refugee that we're using,it's not, it doesn't work
anymore for what we're doing.
Then you know it becomes aconversation about what we where
(51:59):
we want to go right now, as itstands, the Tacoma refugee choir
retains that the term refugee inour name as a commitment to
centering those musicalheritages and the and the
leadership and the direction offolks who have a refugee
(52:24):
experience, and that is kind ofthe core of our operating
philosophy, right? Is that folkscoming into the choir to learn
from folks who have a refugeeexperience, because we believe
that is going to make us betterAmericans, better at welcoming
(52:46):
and also helping us make spacefor Those musical traditions
that that folks bring with them.
it's not a term that we uselightly, right? And that we know
(53:09):
that there it, it's triggeringfor some people, and it's it's
something that continues to beon a point of discussion. I
think that's really kind ofinspiring about the organization
as well and the folks that areinvolved in it, is that the work
(53:31):
is what's important, right? Andthe way that we center that work
is hopefully something that isis represented and mirrored in
in the way that we identify theorganization. So I think it's a
continuing conversation. And theimportant thing too, I think, is
(53:51):
that it the name Tacoma refugeechoir currently kind of holds a
banner up for folks toimmediately understand what we
are, right is that, you know,without kind of having to do a
Google search, you hear the nameTacoma refugee choir, and you
got, oh, place, Tacoma, right?
Not Seattle, right? And then weknow we're centering somehow.
(54:13):
There are folks with a refugeeexperience involved, or there's
advocacy there, or there's andthen we have choir singing. So
there's something about the thethe forceful, the emphatic
nature of that name thatcontinues to endure despite
continuing dialog and discourseabout is there a different way
(54:35):
that we identify right now? Andyeah, we'll see what happens as
we go into the future.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (54:43):
May we embrace the profound
togetherness, the meaning ofplace making chosen by the
Tacoma refugee choir. This choirperforms and lives an
alternative vision of the worldthat builds and refuses to
believe that we can be anythingless than compassionate,
connective and creative, and nowwe close this episode in Season
(55:08):
Four that focused on belonging.
This season has held the voicesof performers, neuroscientists,
social psychologists,peacebuilders and
ethnomusicologists, as we haveexplored the multi faceted
textures of what it means tobelong to each other, to
ourselves, to the natural world,to our bodies and as woven into
(55:28):
place. I leave you with thisclosing parting gift of the
Tacoma refugee choir from theirrecent concert
Unknown (55:40):
art matters. Change matters. Thank you for being
here, and if you have been amember at any time of this
choir, We now invite you to comeon the stage and sing our anthem
with us. Thank you all again forbeing here today. Visit the
tables after the concert's over.
We always end our rehearsalswith the same song in our
(56:01):
concerts too. If you are analumni, you heard him get up
here, we want you to sing usthis side's Probably easier
[music singing yesterday].
[music - Everybody lovessomeone][music - Everybody loves
(56:56):
someone].
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (57:17):
Special thanks to Tacoma refugee choir
for the permission to userecordings in this podcast. My
gratitude to Erin Guinup andOrlando Morales for their time
and thoughts in helping me tobring this podcast together, I
am forever grateful for learningof The ongoing, passionate,
dedicated work that happensacross communities.
(58:35):
[music] This is the music andpeacebuilding podcast hosted by
(59:03):
Kevin Shorner Johnson atElizabethtown College. We host a
master of music education withan emphasis in peacebuilding,
thinking deeply. We reclaimspace for connection and care.
Join us at musicpeacebuilding.com
Unknown (59:34):
Let's go be peacemakers, yah, thank you for
coming visit our friends in thelobby. [music]
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