What does it mean to be human? 

“I love our school theme this year,” Orchestra Director Netta Hadari said. “When I was looking for repertoire specifically for this year — I listen to a lot of music during the spring and summer — I realized again that what we do is inherently human. We work with students in the arts with their hands, minds, hearts, and imaginations.” 

This year Netta, Choral/Vocal Director and Performing Arts Department Head Sue Chrzanowski, Wind Ensemble and Concert Band Director David Winer, and Jazz Ensemble Director Ken Fischer each developed repertoire around the year’s school-wide question, “What does it means to be human?” Exploration of this question also is built into the long-term curriculum in the music department.  

The music faculty are “always programming music from different parts of the world, different languages, and intentionally championing underrepresented composers in our respective disciplines that expand our ideas of what it is to be human,” Netta said.  

The Orchestra’s repertoire this year includes “a religious/spiritual-inspired work by Arvo Pärt — ‘Silouan’s Song’ — one of Pärt’s instrumental works based on a religious text in Russian.” The author of the original text was St. Silouan, a Russian monk from Mount Athos who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. That is among the works being performed in the Winter Ensembles Concert. 

The Orchestra also will play Carlos Simon’s “Elegy: A Cry from the Grave.” 

 “This piece is an artistic reflection dedicated to those who have been murdered wrongfully by an oppressive power; namely Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown,” Netta said. That might be performed at the school’s annual Martin Luther King celebration. 

“Where I am doubling down this year,” Netta said, “is on the students’ connection with the music, to each other, and to my connection to them. I am intentionally celebrating good effort and results, good concentration and work, laughter, play, and creating a sense of community in the classroom. We talk about character and how the music makes us feel, how to translate the notes on the page to our common human experiences, and how to communicate that to a new audience.” 

The Jazz Ensemble will be performing Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely," Ken said. That piece was written to celebrate the birth of Mr. Wonder’s daughter in 1976, and comes from the album, “Songs in the Key of Life.” 

David, in his work with the Wind Ensemble and Concert Band, has chosen multiple pieces to fit the school-year theme, including the powerful “Escape from the Deep” (2010 by Brian Balmages), which was composed to reflect the story of the USS Tang, a World War II Navy submarine.  

“The Tang, first, was a legendary boat, having sunk more enemy ships, rescued more downed airmen, and executed more dangerous surface attacks than any sub in the Pacific battle arena,” David said. “On its fifth mission in October 1944, it fired a torpedo toward an enemy ship; however, the torpedo malfunctioned and turned and struck the Tang, sending it to the bottom of the ocean 180 feet down. Though most perished, five men executed a daring ascent and joined four others who were thrown from the bridge — nine in all survived. There is a book by the same name as the piece which describes the entire event.” 

David said the emotions that come through in the piece make it human. 

“At first,” David said, “adrenaline-fueled responses to being struck, fear, then acceptance of understanding, calm and serenity, then the amazing under-stress problem-solving of the five in the section near the ‘escape trunk’ who had no equipment but devised a breathing method to survive the ascent. Bravery to try it, then the jubilation they must have felt when they surfaced, but also the sadness for their fellow sailors. The nine were picked up by a Japanese ship and held captive under horrible conditions until the end of the war.” 

“Escape From The Deep” will be performed during Family Weekend, which is October 24-25. 

Another piece David has chosen for the fall is “The Exultant Heart” (2014 by Jess Turner), about the joy found in true love and what that does for our lives, David said. That will be among those performed in December at the winter concert. “He uses beautiful, gentle cluster chords and melodic material, mixed with joyous and dance-like folk material, to create an uplifting and wonderful piece of music — it just feels good.” 

Feeling good. An aspect of what it means to be human that all of us would sign up for any day of the week. 

Another aspect of being human is to engage not only with the music, but also with its meaning and with one another. 

“At the start of the term,” said Sue, “I introduced ‘Abreme La Puerta,’ a piece from Puerto Rico in the genre of aguinaldos — the piece is to be sung late at night with the intention of waking up neighbors to receive food and drink and then get them to join us in going to the next house. We began to talk about how much connects us as humans, and how family traditions are passed down from human to human. Several students shared family traditions.” 

Another song Sue recently introduced to her vocal students is a choral version of “Anti Hero” by Taylor Swift. “We talked a lot about how the text reflects the more challenging aspects of being human,” Sue said. “The students’ responses [and] interpretations were way beyond what I had thought about.”  

The concert choir also has worked on other pieces. “Sisi Ni Moja” translates to "We Are One" in Swahili, the song emphasizing that while we are a diverse people we share common experiences. “Dream Keeper” leads to discussions about dreaming, desiring — and being human, Sue said. The concert choir will perform those two pieces on Family Weekend.