Social justice through music

by Norm Olding

Many music directors in B.C. secondary schools take a thematic approach to their concerts. Carol Sirianni, director of the bands and choirs at Riverside Secondary School, in Port Coquitlam, is no exception. Themes in her recent concerts have ranged from the serious (significant events in history) to the silly (novelty songs). This winter, her students faced their greatest challenge yet–a concert on social justice.

Sirianni’s rationale for diving into such controversial waters is that music education "should be about more than notes and rhythms." Sirianni is well versed in the Music IRPs, and she finds in them a call to prepare her students for both performance and citizenship. The social-justice concert, presented February 21, challenged the skills and attitudes of all Riverside’s band and choir students.

The jazz band addressed racism in four numbers celebrating the contributions of black musicians and composers. The senior concert band developed the theme in Mark Camphouse’s A Movement for Rosa–a difficult piece written to honour civil rights activist Rosa Parks.

Harry Chapin’s The Shortest Story, sung by the senior choir, provided an unusual perspective on poverty–a first-person account from an infant who was one more mouth than his mother could feed.

The junior band and junior choir performed three pieces that explored aspects of First Nations culture and history, including residential schools.

The most controversial performance came from the jazz choir, who sang Jennifer Higdon’s Imagine and Fred Small’s Everything Possible–songs that are impassioned responses to homophobia.

The honour band played Frank Ticheli’s An American Elegy, written to honour the victims at Columbine High School. That beautiful piece stood in powerful contrast to the ugliness of the killings and the bullying that preceded them.

The senior choir, addressing violence against women, presented the evening’s most challenging piece–Hildegard Westerkamp’s Ecole Polytechnique, a 19-minute tribute to the 14 women murdered by Marc Lepine, December 6, 1989. The evening concluded with a mass singing of John Lennon’s Imagine.

In addition to learning the music, students assembled powerful visual presentations to accompany the pieces or prepared speeches to introduce each social-justice issue. More important though, Sirianni required that each performing group develop an action plan to address the issue they were presenting. One such action plan was a toy drive for children from a local low-rent apartment building that had recently burned down. As the student who introduced the Chapin song said, "It is, after all, just a song. It’s what we do after listening to it that makes it music."

The issues challenged the attitudes of many students. According to Sirianni, there was at least one student objection to each piece. Sirianni spent much of her time this winter hearing out those objections and inviting students to examine their attitudes. When students found that their beliefs conflicted with their participation, Sirianni excused them from the piece in question. The resistance she encountered took an emotional toll on her and caused her to review her own attitudes. This honest examination by both teacher and students is a testament to the social value of the concert.

Even so, the real work has just begun. The day of the concert, the bands and choirs presented a shorter version of the program to the school at an assembly. During the homophobia segment, music students were subjected to verbal abuse by their peers, who showed little restraint in expressing their views in rude, vulgar, and hurtful terms. I have only admiration and respect for our music students, especially the jazz choir, who withstood the taunting with a dignity their attackers will never possess. I know our school is not unique in having a homophobia problem, but the assembly brought to everyone’s attention the extent of the prejudice.

The evening concert, with a more mature audience, was a remarkable accomplishment for Sirianni and her students. Many in the audience were moved to tears by the music and the songs.

The ripples from the concert have continued to widen as students follow up on their action plans, as the school responds to the homophobia issue, and as word spreads of the legitimate need to address social-justice issues in our schools. Carol Sirianni has shown that meaningful dialogue about social justice has a place in her classroom, and it is our obligation to start and maintain the dialogue in ours.

Norm Olding teaches English and guitar at Riverside Secondary School, Port Coquitlam.