Hi, everybody.

I'm Felicia Curry, and welcome to "WETA Arts," the place to discover what's going on in the creative and performing arts in and around DC.

In this edition of "WETA Arts," a choir made up of those who married into the military uplifts the spirits of the singers and audiences alike.

Woman: This is what my life calling is, is to make this music.

Curry: The Statue of Liberty's little sister arrives in DC.

Man: It's a tribute to democracy, a tribute to freedom.

Here at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Downtown DC, I chat with Lisa Warwick, manager of the People's Archive.

The stories we know about this city keeps our past as well as our future.

All these stories coming up on "WETA Arts."

When COVID-19 hit in 2020, musician and staff sergeant Heidi Ackerman had just left the Army with plans to direct a choir.

It was a departure from military service, but not as much as you might think.

Woman: Here we go.

Hi.

Curry, voice-over: In Clarendon, Virginia, members of the American Military Spouses Choir rehearse in person for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

They are married to servicemembers representing every branch from all across the country.

I'm Krista Callahan from Colts Neck, New Jersey.

Rockville, Maryland.

San Antonio, Texas.

I'm coming technically from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, but my husband is at Fort Hood in Texas.

Curry, voice-over: They've got just two hours to rehearse.

The next time they get together, they will be recording for broadcast.

Ackerman, voice-over: We are preparing to sing a rendition and arrangement of "Joy To The World," and I am thrilled to meet these spouses for the first time in person.

When I heard about CAMMO and heard that they were looking for a new director for the spouses chorus, I knew I had to go for it.

Curry, voice-over: CAMMO is the organization that manages the Spouses Choir.

Go back to their parents for now because we're gonna open up for brunch.

I'm Cathy Lechareas, and I am the co-founder and executive director of CAMMO, stands for the Center for American Military Music Opportunities.

When we were looking for a new director for the American Military Spouses Choir, there were certain qualities we were looking for-- someone that was comfortable with the military life, someone that understood the stress, the upheaval, that the spouses go through.

Ackerman, voice-over: I was active-duty for 7 years with the United States Army Field Band.

I was an alto in the Soldiers' Chorus and enlisted conductor for the Soldiers' Chorus.

We toured about 120 days a year, and we sang and performed in the biggest concert halls to the smallest towns.

What I heard across the country is, so many veterans have felt forgotten for their service or haven't had the right venue to share their voice and share their experience.

The stories of these spouses is the same.

So many spouses feel that they play second fiddle to their active-duty spouse.

I saw the power of music uplift these communities with veterans and schools, and I see the Spouses Choir doing all of that same work.

♪ The promise that we made ♪ ♪ Is one of faith and trust ♪ ♪ To stand strong for you ♪ ♪ As you stand strong for us... ♪ Ackerman, voice-over: Today will be a chance for us to just kind of come together musically but also to start these friendships and for them to get to know me and for me to get to know them.

People are hungry to make music again.

Curry, voice-over: The American Military Spouses Choir started as a one-time backup group for the Kennedy Center's 2012 Spring Gala, which was directed by legendary music producer David Foster.

There was an e-mail saying, "Are you a military spouse, and do you like to sing?"

So I actually found out about CAMMO through a friend who said another friend called her and said, "Listen.

There's this group.

They're looking for, you know, spouses."

Now, granted, I had not participated in music since about high-school age, but I was like, "You know what?

Let's give it a shot," and then I was cast to sing at a Kennedy Center gala with David Foster, and that was kind of the origins of everything.

Woman, voice-over: David Foster wrote a song for us.

We did the recording in Maryland.

The song got sent to "America's got Talent" for an audition, and then we were selected for that.

♪ Ain't no mountain high enough ♪ Woman, voice-over: After we went on "America's got Talent," it's just been one journey after another with CAMMO.

We did Queen Latifah's show and Hallmark "Home & Family."

We were on the USS Intrepid.

That was a couple of years ago for Fourth of July.

I met Jerry Lewis, I'm just saying, at the Kennedy Center.

Curry, voice-over: CAMMO was founded only 3 years before the Spouses Choir hit the big time.

♪ No wind ♪ ♪ No wind ♪ ♪ No rain ♪ ♪ No rain ♪ ♪ No winter's cold ♪ ♪ Can stop me, baby ♪ ♪ Baby ♪ I am a veteran, and I care about our brothers and our sisters.

I was volunteering with Rolling Thunder to help with music for the picnics that they hosted every month for the patients that were at Old Walter Reed.

I was also at the same time working with homeless veterans in DC and learned a great deal about mental health and kind of all just came together with the music and the mental health.

We wanted to provide a therapeutic-based music program.

We wanted to provide industry jobs for the veterans, active-duty, and family members.

I had someone help us with the 501(c)(3) paperwork.

We started.

We used some of my retirement money to get moving, and we grew.

Curry, voice-over: Other CAMMO acts have been attracting the spotlight, as well.

Voices of Service, a quartet of active-duty and veteran servicemembers also competed on "America's got Talent."

[Singing] Lechareas, voice-over: CAMMO now is an umbrella organization.

We also have songwriting workshops and a program at Fort Belvoir called Soundtrack to Recovery where we have gone into the hospital wards.

CAMMO is also developing solo talent.

Donnie Isaacs is one of our country artists.

His song "Duffel Bags" was written at our songwriting workshop.

♪ And it's you I'm fighting for ♪ ♪ Today I pulled the trigger ♪ Lechareas, voice-over: Donnie Isaacs did an interview where he said we helped save his life.

Isaacs: ♪ With my two hands ♪ Lechareas, voice-over: I see what music has done not only for those that are singing, but those in the audience.

♪ Come on, come on ♪ ♪ Come on, come on ♪ ♪ Come on, come on, hey ♪ ♪ Put your hands together ♪ ♪ Hey, me, too, y'all ♪ ♪ Put your hands together ♪ ♪ Coming through ♪ ♪ Put your hands together ♪ ♪ Hey ♪ ♪ And let us pray ♪ Wood, voice-over: When I first started with CAMMO, I actually was stationed in the DC region.

However, when we got orders to Fort Bragg, it made things a little bit more challenging, definitely.

As a military spouse, you're constantly moving, and that can get very isolating and very lonely because you always are having to reinvent yourself.

McClure, voice-over: My husband is in the Air Force.

He deployed to Afghanistan in 2012, and it was a little bit of a dark time for me.

I lived by myself in DC and didn't have any family with me, and it was a member of the choir who suggested that I audition.

We bring hope to spouses, to families, to veterans, to those that are in hospitals, so we bring a message of hope, and I like that.

It's something that I'm glad I'm a part of.

My very first encounter, I went to a rehearsal at the Women's Memorial, and that's kind of where I met everyone.

I'm like a go-between between Cathy and, you know, the other members.

I try to just kind of keep them involved and updated on whatever they need and to, you know, stay encouraged.

I don't take it lightly.

I feel very fortunate, and I'm very grateful.

I'm not gonna get in a, you know-- but it's actually been such a blessing.

McClure, voice-over: They're just getting started again.

It's gonna take them a little bit of time to gel.

No, no, no.

No, no, no.

McClure, voice-over: When we got the notification, the e-mail about this opportunity, that we were gonna do this for the PBS Christmas special, I booked my ticket that same day.

I didn't know any details other than I was gonna be here because not just because of what we're doing, but it's seeing everybody again.

Curry, voice-over: At the USO in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, the American Military Spouses Choir members gather from across the nation to record the video for "Joy To The World."

♪ Joy to the world, the Savior reigns ♪ ♪ Let all their songs employ ♪ ♪ Songs employ ♪ Oh, my gosh, that was so amazing.

Finally being able to sing as a group with these ladies is phenomenal.

You don't realize what you have until it's taken away, and COVID took it away from us, and so it just makes it even more precious now that we have the opportunities to come back to it.

It was incredible.

It was beautiful.

I am so excited that we got to do this.

I love these girls, so this was amazing.

Stubbs, voice-over: I got teary-eyed.

My favorite part is the oohs, and, I tell you, what an amazing experience.

It's just so great to get with everybody, do the recording, and just be able to be loose and sing a Christmas song, and I have to say, now that song is my favorite song.

Music has always been a part of my life, and being able to do it again with people in person is just such a gift.

I've missed these voices so much, and I promised I wasn't gonna cry, but too late.

Ackerman, voice-over: This is what my life calling is, is to make this music, and the chance to do that with these spouses is just an honor.

♪ Joy ♪ To see "Joy To The World" by the American Military Spouses Choir as well as many other local choruses celebrating the season, be sure the catch the December episode of "WETA Arts" for our annual holiday concert show.

France is America's oldest friend.

When the 13 American colonies declared independence from Great Britain in 1776, France was the first country to recognize the United States and the first to send money, materiel, and troops.

When French president Emmanuel Macron recalled his ambassador to the U.S. on September 17 over President Biden's decision to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, it was the first such recall in the history of this long and storied relationship.

Prior to this blip in the historically strong alliance, France celebrated this unique friendship with a grand gesture right here in Washington, DC.

On the front lawn of the French ambassador's residence in Kalorama, the press have gathered for a big reveal.

For the shipping company CMA, it's both literally and figuratively the end of a long haul.

We had about 40 people working on the project from the shipping division to the logistic division making sure that we bring it safe and sound here at the residence.

Curry, voice-over: This 9-foot-tall, thousand-pound version of Auguste Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty made a 4,00-mile journey from Paris to grace the lawn of the manor house.

Its previous home was in front of the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts Museum in Paris, also known as CNAM.

It was during a G7 meeting in 2019 that the director of the museum, Olivier Faron, and Ambassador Philippe Etienne hatched the plan to move the statue.

This idea, yes, it was, I guess, sparked in a meeting, a meeting of friends and minds.

We had the idea of sending the little sister 135 years after the big sister across the Atlantic to the United States and to put it first one week in New York for the Independence Day to present it to the big sister and then to have her come to Washington.

Olivier Faron is a historian.

He understands the value of not only the statue, but also this new crossing of the Atlantic.

I think that it has a very important political meaning of this statue.

Obviously, it's this meaning of enlightenment but a meaning of freedom, too.

Bartholdi want to give a political message.

At the same time, he want to do an artistic realization.

The best decision is to keep the statue here.

Curry, voice-over: Displaying the Statue of Liberty's little sister on the French ambassador's front lawn is just the latest way sculptor Auguste Bartholdi has touched Washington, DC.

Woman: We are standing in Bartholdi Park, a part of the United States Botanic Garden, and behind me is the Fountain of Light and Water, also known as the Bartholdi Fountain, and it is named after the sculptor who made not just this sculpture, but also the Statue of Liberty-- Frederic Auguste Bartholdi.

An interesting bit of fountain history is that the Botanic Garden nearly lost the fountain.

In 1881, then-Secretary of State James Blaine wanted to move the fountain to Dupont Circle because his home was right near there and he thought it would be nice to have it near his home.

There was insufficient water pressure in Dupont Circle to run the fountain.

Secretary Blaine wanted the fountain in Dupont Circle so much that he arranged for a meeting with the DC waterworks and President Garfield to talk about the water pressure, and it was meant to have happened on that same day that Garfield was assassinated, and the whole plan went nowhere.

Fortunately for us, we got to keep the fountain.

Curry, voice-over: The fountain was complete when it arrived in Washington.

The Statue of Liberty, on the other hand, has a more complex history.

Scholars cannot verify how the idea for the original statue came to be.

Bartholdi claimed many years after the fact that he was inspired at a dinner party.

The statue was imagined, thought by a man--a liberal, the head of the abolitionist movement in France called Edouard de Laboulaye-- as a reaction to the news of the murder of Abraham Lincoln in Washington.

They have the idea to create together a symbol of the new freedom of the changing the states against slavery and so on.

Curry, voice-over: Whatever sparked the idea, the plan was for the French to pay for the statue and for the Americans to pay for the base and provide the location.

The hard task of fundraising would take place on both sides of the Atlantic.

Bartholdi comes to America in 1876 for the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition.

He needs to prove himself, but when he arrives, the fountain is not here yet, and the statue's hand and torch are not here yet.

When the Bartholdi Fountain eventually arrives, it hadn't had its first coat of paint put on.

It is not until the final month of the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition that the hand and the torch arrive and that the American public can actually pay a little fee to walk up inside the hand and stand on the torch and get interested in the project.

the hand and the torch end up going on to New York, where it sits in Madison Square Park with, hopefully, the same fundraising effect, and the Bartholdi Fountain goes on to Washington, DC.

October 28, 1886, in the harbor behind me is the dedication day for the Statue of Liberty.

It was described as a dreary, foggy day but a day filled with celebration.

Celebration of what?

It's overwhelmingly about these two sister republics that were once united in times of war that are still owing each other something.

That's what the whole dedication seems to be about.

She's dedicated with her proper name that Bartholdi gave her-- "La Liberte Eclairant le Monde," "Liberty Enlightening the World."

Many of the papers called it for years just the Bartholdi Statue, similarly to the fountain in DC.

The Bartholdi Fountain, this was the Bartholdi Statue.

It takes a little bit of time for everybody to call her the Statue of Liberty.

Curry, voice-over: Emma Lazarus' poem that includes the words, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," helped inspire the idea that the Statue of Liberty represent a symbol of hope to immigrants.

Lazarus wrote the poem in 1885 as a fundraiser for the statue's base.

A plaque with the poem was added to the pedestal in 1903.

The symbolism of the statue was shifting.

Housch, voice-over: The placement of the Statue of Liberty by Bartholdi was intentional.

The water behind Liberty Island is too shallow for boats.

The shipping channel is in front of her.

It is no surprise that immigrants coming in in 1886 and 1892 when Ellis Island opens that they are going to see the Statue of Liberty.

Immigrants associate her with America just like Allied servicemen coming home from World War II passing by on ships in front of her associate her with America.

She's in a great spot to look at a work of art if you're coming by on a ship.

Many of our visitors are confused by the idea that countries would want to give a gift to each other at all.

I think it's exciting that Little Liberty came here because it reminded visitors that, hey, this can still happen today.

Curry, voice-over: The story of Little Liberty starts in 2007 with art dealer Guillaume Duhamel taking his son to an art exhibit at CNAM.

Duhamel was surprised by a display of Bartholdi's 1878 plaster model for the giant statue now in New York Harbor in a condition that could be used to make new statues.

Well, it was really an encounter.

Certainly, I come in front of this statue, it was really a shock for me.

It was THE Statue of Liberty, the real one, the first project, the utterly plaster made by the hand of the artist, by Bartholdi.

Because I'm an art dealer, when I found that the original edition had never been made, I wanted to do it.

It's the most known work of art in the world.

Anywhere you go in the world, everybody knows the Statue of Liberty.

It's unique.

The biggest challenge was that the museum didn't want the statue to be touched, so we had to do a digital scanning.

We had to make a second model.

Then we could do a mold, and then we could cast it.

We made 12 from this.

We gave number one to the Musee des Artes et Metiers which became, actually, a national treasure.

Curry, voice-over: Duhamel presented CNAM its statue in 2009, where it remained until the French ambassador and his friend the museum director had their idea to send it to the U.S. We could have the idea, but to implement the idea is something different, so we needed a certain partner.

We found it with a big, French shipping company-- CMA CGM.

In Paris, we designed a very customized, special, plexiglass container to handle this precious cargo.

It was trucked to our vessel in Le Havre, France... and took it to Port Elizabeth, New Jersey.

We trucked it to Ellis Island, where we displayed it for July 1 through July 7.

Our logistics company then moved it down to Washington.

Curry, voice-over: At the ambassador's residence, the statue was revealed to the public on Bastille Day, July 14, France's Independence Day.

The fact that both the foreign minister of France and the secretary of state of the United States were there together means that our governments work closely together, especially on those challenges our democracies face together, and it's also something we can underline with this beautiful statue.

Duhamel: It's a tribute to democracy, a tribute to freedom and entrepreneurship because making the statue in New York was really a big project which was achieved by Bartholdi.

Olmeta, voice-over: The Statue of Liberty was welcoming to the U.S. That resonate to me because I am a foreigner in the U.S., even if I have been living in the U.S. for a number of years, so I have always had a lot of interest for the statue, so being involved to bring the little sister was something special.

On September 22, the French announced that Ambassador Etienne would return to Washington.

Little Liberty never left and continues to be on view through the gates of the residence at 2221 Kalorama Road, Northwest.

The Bartholdi Fountain on 100 First Street, Southwest, has running water spring through fall, and a great time to see it is at night when it's lit.

Hi, Lisa.

Welcome to "WETA Arts."

We are so excited to have you here, so tell me a little bit about the People's Archive.

The People's Archive, where we're sitting, is DC Public Library's local history center.

The People's Archive includes the Black Studies Collection; Washingtoniana, which is just local DC history; and the Peabody Room on the top floor of the Georgetown Library.

The Black studies collection is a book collection that focuses on African American history, both in DC but also nationally.

Washingtoniana goes back to 1905, telling the story of Washington, DC.

And I know that music is a big part of the People's Archive.

Can you tell me a little bit about what kind of music is in the People's Archive and why it's important to the local culture here in DC?

We are really proud of collecting in go-go and punk music collections.

The go-go collections sometimes talk about what the city was like during the 1980s, so the level of crime, the level of policing, targeting go-go clubs.

They're all digitized, and you can go on digdc.dclibrary.org and see them yourself.

It just shows a really vibrant, exciting time in the go-go community.

The punk collections show things like anti-drug, anti-capitalism culture in the Eighties, Nineties, and we want to keep collecting since these cultures are still vibrant and alive in DC today.

I'd love to hear any specifics about things that really excite you in those collections.

I really love the photos of Chuck Brown that Chip Py took.

They just really show the excitement of seeing Chuck Brown live in concert.

Brown: ♪ I really love your style and your dress ♪ ♪ So fly, yo ♪ ♪ I'd love to see your pretty face at my show ♪ Tell me, in the punk collection, what kind of things can we hear or touch or see in the collection?

I really love some of the items in the Mark Andersen collection, so that collection includes recordings of shows as well as things like ticket stubs and set lists.

[Punk music playing] One of the newly acquired items is a poster and shows an advertisement for a show where both punk and go-go bands were playing.

I see some exhibits behind us.

I'd love to hear exactly what those are about.

These exhibits have been a great way to kind of showcase the things that are in the People's Archive.

I see people walking through all the time and pointing out set lists and saying, like, "I remember being at that concert or at that show," and being able to share memories with the people they come visit with or with the staff, which is one of the great joys of working here.

So what do you say to somebody who says, "I don't have anything that would be great for the archive"?

I say, think about something that your great-grandmother had that she would think is just a normal, everyday item and how precious that would be, and you would be surprised at what ends up being really useful to researchers and really precious to the people in the future who are gonna live in this city.

I really believe that the stories we know about this city keeps our past as well as our future.

I know some of our viewers might be watching and thinking, "Can I add something to the People's Archive?"

Can they, and how would they do that?

The easiest way to donate to us is to e-mail us at peoples.archive@dc.gov, and we will get back to you and let you know the easiest way to transfer that material to our collection.

Lisa, thank you so much.

It's been a pleasure having you.

Thank you.

Here's a quote from disability activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Helen Keller.

"No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars "or sailed to an uncharted land or opened a new doorway for the human spirit."

Thank you for watching this episode of "WETA Arts."

Be well, be creative, and enjoy the art all around you.

I'm Felicia Curry.

Announcer: For more about the artists and institutions featured in this episode, to go weta.org/arts.