The Turtle Creek Chorale has been timely in its concerts before. But never this timely.
Last summer, the chorale announced its season schedule and on March 22 to 24 it would perform a concert called Anthems including songs that shaped the movements. They would even premiere a song cycle called Peacekeepers. One song in that cycle is The Peacemaker – Colt .45.
But how did the magician Baugh know that on the same day they’d be singing “How many deaths will it take ’til he knows, That too many people have died?” March for Our Lives would attract hundreds of thousands of demonstrators? How did he know there would be another school shooting, but this time it would be different? The students wouldn’t shut up like the NRA has told them to do? How did he know that instead, those students would begin another movement?
How? All I can figure is the answer is blowing in the wind.
I wasn’t the only one who in that audience who had chills running up and down my spine thinking the Turtle Creek Chorale has never been more timely. I wasn’t the only one in the audience who felt it, because a number of people I saw at the concert were at City Hall Plaza earlier today supporting those students. Lines referring to one movement or another were suddenly revelant to today’s news.
Among the more stirring pieces was Neil Young’s “Ohio.” That song recounts the shooting of four students at Kent State in Ohio by National Guard troops at an anti-war rally. But just as the students from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School have embraced the Black Lives Matter movement, the Pulse shootings and other victims of gun violence, the chorale’s rendition of “Ohio” made the Kent State murders as timely as the Parkland massacre. And dance team SoundBytes added to the mood with a dramatic interpretation of the events. They never fail to impress.
The chorale standard “Why We Sing” took on new meaning as they dedicated it to the victims of the Pulse slaughter.
In the Peacekeepers cycle, the song “Stand Up” builds slowly – so slowly, I wasn’t sure everyone in the audience was going to actually stand up. But a line toward the end: “When they’re building that damn wall … you’ve got to stand up and answer that call,” certainly got anyone still in their seats on their feet.
I’ve always loved “The Sound of Silence,” but it takes on new grandeur with a choral version. And Roscoe Compton and Colby Geyer deserved their standing ovation for “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to be Free.” Other soloists Benny Ruiz and Jacob Lofland were also fabulous. And Chris Doubet’s half falsetto or maybe huge range made “A Change Is Gonna Come” another highlight of the concert.
The final performance is Sunday, March 24. Peacekeepers will be performed again later this season during the Friendship Tour. A kickoff concert will be held in Dallas. More details on that soon.