- [Narrator] "Art Beat" is made possible in part by the Chesapeake Bay Wine Classic Foundation.

- I'm Jeff Lindquist.

You know, we try to keep things kind of loose around here.

(Jeff laughs) To have as much fun as possible.

And this is true of the arts as well.

They too are fun, but the arts can be more than fun.

They can convey important ideas.

On this edition of "Art Beat," we're gonna talk about the fight against repression, the Civil Rights Movement, the struggle for freedom in other parts of the world and other times, and how the Virginia Symphony ties it all together with powerful music.

It's coming up now on "Art Beat."

(upbeat music begins) For the past three years, the Virginia Symphony has dedicated one full day for this special concert program, called "Of Heroes and Human Rights."

The daytime program is aimed at middle school and high schoolers.

In the evening, an expanded concert welcomes the whole community.

The goal is to help students and their families reflect on social issues while coming together with new ways to listen to classical music.

- [Micheal] The Virginia Symphony is planning a unique repertoire for its third annual concert that celebrates the American Civil Rights Movement.

Performing on the bill are Elbert Watson, Gerri Hollins, and Jason Idol.

At 13, Jason has already won a host of awards and accolades for his piano playing.

Jason has aspirations to become a concert pianist.

Don't let his quiet unassuming manner fool you.

There's a lot going on with Jason.

He is fully dedicated to perfecting his craft and playing the piano is his life.

He will be sharing the stage with the Virginia Symphony, playing the second and third movements of Beethoven's Concerto number four during the concert "Of Heroes and Human Rights."

- The orchestra is some mean big monster or something, and I'm trying to get it to be my friend.

And so we're talking back and forth and it's going in one direction and I'm trying to get it to be my friend.

- [Micheal] As a dancer and teacher, Elbert Watson has worldwide experience.

Classically trained, Elbert uses his talents to choreograph a dance movement in remembrance of the 1989 Tienanmen Square Massacre to the music of Hillary Tans' "The Open Field."

Elbert tackled the challenge of interpreting the massacre by first doing some research.

- I went and found as many books as I could on Tiananmen Square because I felt I'd heard about it.

But in terms of why it happened, and who it happened to, and who are the motivators, who are the people involved, why'd they do it, where, when, that was the driving force to me behind the movement.

Once you've done your research, and once you've choreographed, and once you invest in the movement, and once you transform into the character, then the audience gets the story, because dance is nonverbal.

So physically one has to transform into what you're trying to interpret.

So this first thing is a reaching and crying out, and then it almost is like crying out here.

And then it's coming to the mouth in the ears.

And this whole thing is as if, you know, reaching up, and then we go here and then we do stretching, and then we step in, and this is, I will not be silenced kind of thing.

- [Micheal] When it comes to heroes, both Elbert and Jason have chosen people who are close to their hearts.

- Jesus Christ first.

- My parents and my favorite pianist, which is Evgeny Kissin.

He's from Russia.

- Because I guess he embodies loving in spite of, loving unconditionally, standing up for what's right.

You know, ultimately.

Martin Luther King, of course.

And even the students at Tiananmen Square have learned to have a different passion for them, because many of them wrote their wills out before they even went.

And you start to think, what drives a person to wanna die for something?

That's an incredible force.

The most important thing is that history's a very fragile thing.

History's very fragile.

And also I'm interpreting a different culture.

The other thing is that entertainment and dance can be a very powerful medium to teach people, 'cause on a visceral level, they can see and feel it.

They know.

And that ultimately we're all the same across the world.

We all want the very same things.

The whole thing is that, I guess the whole thing is that everything is integrated together and that we aren't separate, you know?

And so I have coaches coming in to stretch things and that I have something that you have and vice versa.

We are always together, but it's not about being separate and that it's about education.

- Joining me now is Wes Kenny, associate conductor of the Virginia Symphony and the organizer for the concert.

Also with us is Soprano Gerri Hollins, who will be performing traditional spirituals in the concert.

Welcome.

- Thank you.

- Wes, I'll ask you first, how did you come up with the idea for this concert?

- Well, it's kind of interesting.

The very first high school concert that I did for the Virginia Symphony, we didn't have a very large audience.

And I went out and asked high schoolers, in particular high schoolers who are playing instruments and really are participating in the arts already, why don't you come and listen to the Virginia Symphony?

And they said, "Well, we would come, but you always play the same old stuff."

And I kind of took that as a challenge and thought to myself, well, what they want to hear maybe is music that we don't normally play.

And there is so much great music out there that deals with social issues and that could be used within the classroom as well, as they're studying contemporary history.

That you put the two together and you come up with a concert that really deals with the struggle of human rights, the idea of civil rights, and so much of what happens in the world in a political arena.

And composers have been living with this, of course we talked about the last century now, through politics, and some of their solutions from the experiences they've had have been incredible.

And so we've selected very special music for this concert that always deals with some sort of social issue.

And it's not necessarily just about human rights, sometimes it deals with ecology, and sometimes it deals with relationships.

But inevitably it is something that has some kind of stress and tension within the music that eventually has some kind of resolution.

- What are some of the, I noted in the program that I saw that they're like different movements in the concert, right?

Which is very similar to the movements within classical music.

Can you tell me a little bit about those different movements?

- Well, some of the pieces stand by themselves.

For example, our first concert, we did a piece called "Music of Prague, 1968," written by Carol Husa.

And it was about the crushing of the Prague Spring and Carol Husa's prediction of what was going to happen in Prague.

And amazingly enough, it's exactly what happened 20 years later as far as the Velvet Revolution.

On this year's concert, for example, we're going to do a single movement called "Trinity for the Victims of Hiroshima," which is all about tambour and texture in music and has nothing to do about rhythm and melody.

Very interesting piece.

But then we also zero in on larger works that may have a particular movement that also deals with human rights.

For example, on this concert we're going to do the first movement of Shostakovich seventh Symphony, which is called "The Siege of Leningrad."

And this is Shostakovich's experience being in Leningrad with the approach of the Nazi army taking place, of course during World War II.

- Very neat.

Gerri, this is your first year?

- [Gerri] Yes, it is.

- Singing with it?

- [Gerri] Well, with the symphony, I guess.

- [Jeff] Yes, the symphony.

Can you tell us some of the songs you're gonna be singing?

- Well, I'm doing two negro spirituals.

One is "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen."

And the other is "My Soul's Been Anchored in the Lord."

- [Jeff] How'd you become involved with this?

- Well, I met this wonderful lady who has a lot of energy, her name is Ernestine Dole, who happens to be the assistant to a education coordinator for the symphony.

And she had read in the newspaper something about a piece that I was doing referencing the contraband slaves over in Hampton.

- It's my duty as a prideful citizen of Virginia to do what I can to help out.

Therefore, I decided to sell y'all to get the money to help us advance our cause.

- Master Mallory, please, master, your daddy promised he wouldn't sell us.

- [Gerri] I'm descended from those slaves and we're doing a piece on the memorial of those slaves in Hampton.

So when she read the newspaper article on that, she contacted me to see if I'd do a display at that time.

And I told her I would be happy to do that, but I'm a singer.

So when she found out I was a singer and that I do concerts and I sang with the Shinsei Nihon Symphony Orchestra in Japan.

(soulful singing begins) ♪ You better mind ♪ ♪ You better mind ♪ ♪ You gotta give an account at the judgment ♪ ♪ You better mind ♪ ♪ You better mind how sing ♪ ♪ You better mind what you're singing about ♪ ♪ You gotta give an account at the judgment ♪ ♪ You better mind ♪ And I fly at least once or twice a year to Japan to Concertize.

She says, "Oh my, well I must introduce you to Wes Kenny."

So she introduced me to Wes, and I think we kind of got the ball moving.

- Now I think a lot of people have heard about these traditional spirituals, but can you tell us a little bit about the history of it.

- Well, traditional spirituals came out of early spirituals, the mature spirituals is what we're talking about.

And how they evolved, actually, Fisk University, there was a gentleman there named George L. White, who was the president at the time.

He had taken a bunch of former slaves on a tour because they needed to save the school.

And they were called the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

And this was 1866.

The music that they had sang, and of course it needed to be cultivated, this was the music that they had sang in the fields.

And they decided they would take these songs and cultivate them and put actual, you know, a pattern to them that they could sing.

So that's where they originated.

And then George L. White over at Hampton Institute, which was Hampton Normal School at that time, did something very similar in 1871 with the Hampton Singers and they cultivated the music.

- Interesting, and this is your first year.

Wes, how long has this been going on now?

- This is our third year now doing this kind of a concert and it's been extremely successful.

And I think part of it is because we're doing unusual music.

Music that the Virginia Symphony might not normally get a chance to play because it does focus on a particular topic.

Some of the other pieces that we're doing also are, you know, different in sound, and they're usually something written very recently.

Hillary Tan's "The Open Field," for example, is about Tiananmen Square and that'll be on this concert.

And that was written in 1989, when democracy seemed to be breaking out all over the world.

And it looked like democracy was about to happen in China.

And of course the rest of history.

And she actually chose some interesting themes to go into this piece.

For example, the "Ode to Joy" from the Beethoven Ninth Symphony.

It's heard in this, because, I mean, that was brotherhood of man, and it sounded like that was what was going to happen.

And then she also used a little bit of "Three Blind Mice," the quote, "She cut off the tails with a carving knife," because it's essentially what happened to the people in Tiananmen Square.

So, I mean, here's another unusual piece, we're going to do the Olympic fanfare from the 1984 Olympics and it was this was Olympic games that I actually worked at.

And I have to tell you that, in listening to this fanfare, it just brings tears to my eye, because it was so inspiring.

But this of course is going in the opposite direction.

This is actually talking about the brotherhood of man and people coming together for a single purpose.

It may be competition, but nonetheless it's good, clean competition, where people shake hands afterwards.

As opposed to the aggressiveness that happens when nations come to war or politics get involved.

- Well, it certainly sounds exciting, and not only to see you sing it, but also to hear this wonderful music.

- I might also add, we explain the music as we go.

And I think it's a very important part of this concert, such that I'm sure Alina and Gerri, for example, who has visited Japan, for example, to talk a little bit about some of the things that she's seen in the museums about Hiroshima.

So I mean that's, people will get a sense of where we're going with each of these pieces.

- Very good, very good.

Well thank you for being with us here tonight.

- My pleasure.

- Learning about the struggle for justice and the universal quest for freedom has been unique for everyone involved, as we've heard.

When we come back, we're gonna see how both teachers and students have been inspired by this unforgettable musical experience.

- "Apartheid in Afghanistan."

"Looking at the world through the tiny squares of my burka, the shroud stifling the air as I struggle to breathe and take in the life that is denied to me."

(upbeat music begins) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - "Of Heroes and Human Rights" is the Virginia Symphony's main annual outreach program.

Listen with us now as we hear how inspired students have responded to this unique musical experience in their own words.

- [Micheal] Tallwood High School is the home of students in a gifted and talented program who are having a unique experience developing prose and poetry that relates to heroes and human rights.

Teacher, Lisa Walker, feels her students show keen insight into heroism and the importance of freedoms we sometimes take for granted.

- Being that this is part of your history, your heritage, and being the part that this is something that not just people of color should know about, but people of all creeds, races and kinds.

Because with the work of these movements and these causes, and because it has been so strongly felt throughout time, that it should just be embodied and embedded in your head.

"Silhouette, the beginning, of a movement, of a cause, first formed in mind, then in body and soul.

The picture of a dark time and the essence of a dark people Fighting, fighting for freedom, fighting for their lives, fighting for a dying heritage.

Therefore, what does it take to save a race that was worth as much as a penny with a hole in it?

It only takes one person to choose.

To choose to climb a mountain of adversity, to knock down a wall of trials and tribulations, and to be the start of a chain.

Not one of physical bodies, but one of mental prowess.

I personally think all of those links in the chain of my people are proud people and people who knew what it was like to hurt, to suffer, and to cry.

But all in vain, our efforts were not, because we have emerged.

Lord knows we have emerged."

- It's often disturbing when you first talk to teenagers about heroes.

They'll tell you they don't have any, they don't know any, they're not exactly sure what a hero is.

And so part of what we do is explore the nature of heroism.

Whether a hero was born or somebody like Winston Churchill, who finished very last in his class, rose to the forefront, found what was within himself to to summon up the strength and the courage.

- My poem is basically about time.

Once you really break it down, how important time really is and how we should take advantage of every single moment that God has placed us.

"What would we ever have done without you, Dr. King?

I can think of all the times we could have loved you instead of been arguing with you.

We could have been honoring you and embracing you instead of pushing you away.

We could have spent the time enjoying your smile, admiring your style, and accepting of your great ways.

We could have been becoming familiar with your teachings and understanding your meanings.

If we only could have seen what you were seeing, instead of carrying on with our meaningless chatter, we could have accepted who you were and ended this chase and given you a place within our hearts."

- Emerson says, "A hero is a regular person who's braver five minutes longer."

And so if you can get that across to the kids that they can do something.

- "Dear Mahatma Gandhi, let me begin by introducing myself.

My name is Martin Luther King Jr, and I'm currently 17 years old, living in Pennsylvania."

Not a lot of people know that Gandhi was such a great influence, and I wanted to write a letter and let a lot of people know how Martin Luther King felt and what his views were.

"I've been following your promotion of non-violence and your campaign since a very young age.

I would greatly appreciate you taking the time to answer some of my questions or to give me some advice.

For a few years I've been contemplating the integration of Black Americans into mainstream society.

I believe that if each person can put aside the issue of color, that racial equality and mutual respect will be achieved.

If the cessation of discrimination at public facilities occurs, then slowly discrimination with housing, schools, employment, and voting registration will also come to a halt.

I have acquired many ideas on ways to end racial discrimination, and it is my goal to someday share these beliefs with everyone.

I've learned through studying your campaigns that my voice and opinions need to be heard.

And I have been taking public speaking classes to express these opinions to the public.

I would really like to hope that someday you'll hear from me in more than just letters, and that someday I will make the type of impact on society that you have so nobly made.

Sincerely, Martin Luther King Jr." - I was thinking a lot of Tiananmen Square and the kids who were shot for doing their protest about democracy.

And to me it's so tragic to kill these young people who have just started out in the world because they have a different idea from what everybody else thinks.

"For the young who have died crying, "Freedom," looking into the eyes of tomorrow in a child's sleepy stare, willing the possibility of brotherhood, language of love, sigh of care.

We cannot keep harming our future for the innocent ways that they dream, nor spill the blood of our children just for a protest or scheme.

How long will it take us to see our children only wish to be free?

So cease fire, restrain our harsh hands.

Listen to what they may shout.

For in their chants is a cry for dignity, freedom, and peace, not doubt.

Take the wings from the bullets, may they not fly and harm.

Our future sleepy eyed with hope their only charm.

Protect what they say, give their thoughts wings instead.

Take those wax wings from our children.

Dare them to fly near the sun.

Arm them with the ability, for without ability, hope is none."

- "Apartheid in Afghanistan."

"Looking at the world through the tiny squares of my burka, the shroud stifling the air as I struggle to breathe and take in the life that is denied to me.

The black windows that offer no light surround me and remind me of the darkness I have always known.

Denied education and the right to work, I'm forced to beg on the streets, risking my worthless life for food for my children.

Fearing death, yet longing for an end, I'm surrounded by a threatening world of brutal lashings and flying bullets that whir past my covered face into the lonely and depressed heart of the woman next to me.

For she has defied them, the beasts, the Taliban.

She will perish alone without any aid to her dying soul.

For we have been denied of any services, the only right we have is the right to die.

Like all the other animals of the world.

We are human beings without human rights.

We are women in Afghanistan struggling to live in a world forbidding freedom.

Save us from this land that makes death seem like the answer to my prayers.

Prayers full of tears and longing of desire to see the world without this blanket of hindrance that remains before my face."

- "Take those wax wings from my children, dare them to fly near the sun, arm them with the ability, for without ability, hope is none."

- Human rights.

Human rights is something that's central to all of us.

And I think many Americans don't realize, especially our kids, it's natural for us to want a better life for them.

They're very far removed from war, from the stigma, the memories of war, the talk of war.

Human rights are something that we're all entitled to, but not just entitled to, we're all the keepers of human rights for each other.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - Well, that's a wrap for us this week.

I hope this edition of "Art Beat" has helped you understand how musical and civil freedom can connect.

I want to thank all of our guests and our performers too.

Next week we'll raise the curtain on the Virginia Stage company as they prepare for another performance.

So until next time, I'm Jeff Lindquist.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - [Narrator] "Art Beat" is made possible in part by the Chesapeake Bay Wine Classic Foundation.

(static hisses) (chirpy music begins)