If you had one thing to tell the world, what would it be? There’s no quick answer to this question, but John Dickson, the artistic director of the vocal ensemble Coro Vocati, posed the question to elementary school students. Their responses inspired the title piece of Coro Vocati’s Fall Concert program, “Dear World,” written by a group of composers at Louisiana State University. Coro Vocati will perform the piece as part of their concerts at Morningside Presbyterian Church and Holy Innocents Episcopal Church on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 1-2. John Dickson joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom to talk about this unique musical presentation and the poetry and conversations that inspired it.
Interview highlights:
Music and questions inspired by Emily Dickinson’s poem:
“This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me –
The simple News that Nature told
With tender Majesty
Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see –
For love of Her – Sweet – countrymen
Judge tenderly – of Me”
“I’ve always enjoyed Dickinson’s poems and for some reason, this one came to mind, and this fascinating thought of writing a letter to the world just caught my interest, and that became the theme for this project as well as for this concert,” said Dickson.
Why and how Dickson put the question to a group of young students:
“We know, ‘out of the mouth of babes’ come some amazing comments, and I thought… it would be very fascinating to see what children would say if they had one thing that they could ask the world. One of our LSU graduates was teaching elementary, and I asked her to ask her class if they would write a letter, and what would they say to the world if they could say one thing. And I got some amazing responses from all of these kids, and I then just kind of selectively sampled enough to pull some thoughts from three of the children’s writings,” Dickson explained.
“Sarah’s letter says, ‘I will plant flowers, and I won’t litter. I will be polite by picking up things in the grass, and I will bless you, world.’ So Sarah’s was very much an environmental approach to the planting of trees and flowers and not littering, as she says,” Dickson said. “Braden’s caught me the most because of the amazing insight… He says, ‘Why do we have wars and power? I know you want to be the powerful est. But what if there were no number one? Please, world, make peace. Queens and kings: y’all can still be kings and queens, but don’t make war.’ And finally, he says, ‘And why do you want to be number one when there can be no numbers?'”
On musical selections created and chosen to embody the students’ letters:
“I found this amazing young Indian woman composer, Shruthi Rajasekar, and the entire piece [‘Numbers’] is nothing but numbers, and it’s one of the most complex rhythmic pieces that I have ever seen. It’s quite a challenge to the singers. In fact, they’re still struggling a bit. They’ll get there, but it’s not easy. But the whole piece ends with this repetition of the number one and zero,” Dickson said.
“[Contemporary choral composer] Eric [Whitaker] is a good friend, and I’ve done so many of his pieces, but his early music, these three ‘Flower’ songs – we’re doing two of those to celebrate Sarah’s letter of planting flowers,” said Dickson. “I want to certainly mention the composers of these children’s pieces. I gave these texts to three young women who are singers in my LSU choir, and they’re composers. And they had two minutes of music each to write, and to make these fit, so that they all three work together as a set. The composers are Mikeila McQueston, who is a native Atlantan, Alana Scott and also Hannah Rice. And they did a brilliant job with this piece.”
Coro Vocati will present “Dear World,” a program of choral music, as part of their upcoming concerts at Morningside Presbyterian Church and Holy Innocents Episcopal Church on Oct. 1-2. Tickets and more information are available at https://corovocati.org/
