As retirement looms, close enough now to start thinking seriously about what the next chapter might look like, I’ve picked up a few new things to do. This blog is one of them: I’ve got some things on my mind, enough writing ability to have them make sense, at least to me, and a perilous world for my children that drives the prose.
The other is music. I am learning to play piano, and have finally figured out how to read the bass clef. I also sing. I have been in choirs since I was a kid, and have always selected which church I attend based on the quality of the music. Recently I began singing with a small group that performs Georgian music (the Tblisi Georgia, not Atlanta). It is challenging stuff: Georgian music is polyphonic, but not the polyphony that western ears are used to. There is often dissonance, so you can never be quite sure that you are hitting the right note. And the lyrics? Well, let’s just say that there is no lack of consonants in the Georgian language. On the bright side, most of our audiences won’t know the difference if I mispronounce anything.
The group, called Iveria, has its roots in the Yale Russian Chorus, where most of its long time members met. The chorus toured the USSR back in the 1980s, and there encountered Georgian music for the first time. A lot of the YRC alumni still keep in touch, and so we were invited by one of those alums to take part in a benefit concert for Ukraine last Sunday.
The concert was held in a church in Connecticut, really a beautiful space for singing, with great acoustics. While spartan in appearance, at least compared to the ornate Catholic churches I am used to, the room was softened by the sunlight streaming through stained-glass windows. Iveria shared the bill with the Yevshan Chorale, a group that includes many Ukrainian immigrants and children of immigrants from western Massachusetts and Connecticut. Yevshan’s concert garb is decorative, with embroidery that rendered our all-black outfits drab in contrast.
It was a full house, or as close to that as didn’t matter. Although the concert was free, donations were encouraged. Besides money (with 20$ bills and checks accumulating in the collection baskets at the door), warm clothing and blankets piled up on tables in the vestibule. All were destined for a sister church in Ukraine where the pastor and many of the parishioners had gone off to fight.
The music was, in a word, enchanting. Without understanding any Ukrainian, listening to Yevshan, I felt a lightness that had little to do with the current state of the world. Nor was the Israel-Hamas war ignored: Oksana, a member of Yevshan, and her Jewish husband (resplendent in crocheted shirt and neckpiece) sang Shalom Aleichem in a mixture of Hebrew and English. It was a plaintive, beautiful call for peace in another troubled part of the world.
After our set, Iveria joined Yevshan for the last song of the concert, Molytva za Ukrainu (Prayer for Ukraine). It is hard to sing with a lump in your throat, but I managed.
Those Ukrainians that I spoke with at the concert, both attendees and Yevshan members, were quietly confident that Ukraine would survive and thrive, despite Putin’s attempted genocide. It was not blind optimism, but rather a statement of faith in the justice of their fight. They are aware of the cost of Ukraine’s resistance, and that those fortunate enough to not face the danger directly need to get involved as best they can. For me it was an awakening: I never really thought much about the fact that I am part Ukrainian, but now I am glad that I was able to contribute in a small way. Blankets, money and a bass line may not be much, but it is what I can do.
I grew up in the garden age of the USA, when mistakes weren’t costly and there was always a second chance. Disasters happened at a remove. The rule of thumb in my youth was the more people dead, the further away it was. Yes, I worried about Viet Nam and getting drafted, but my number was high, and anyway, the war ended a year after I became eligible. Now, it seems different. Fascism is rearing its head, with one of the two parties that make up the U.S. government either supporting the fascism or ignoring it. Things seem dark, darker than ever I remember.
Still, after the concert, I felt a lightness I haven’t felt in years. What was that feeling? Oh, yes. I think it is called hope.