The Welsh National Opera has offered me a commission to compose a protest song for their Liberty or Death series. There are many historical and recent accounts of police brutality for me to draw my narrative from. Whilst civil rights abuses against the less protected, (the poor and disadvantaged, those whose skin colour sets them outside from the blend, etc.), is an obvious reference point, this Ottawa, Canada G20 Summit attached clip, from 2010, takes my mind back to the Kent State University killings by the authorities in Ohio, USA. It was 1970, white privileged students were protesting the Vietnam war all over the country and it was being filmed live on TV. As my Grandmother Alberta and I watched the mayhem unfold before our eyes on the black and white tube encased in wood, she gravely stated to me,See what they do to their own? Imagine what they will do to you. This from a woman who, before this, had never uttered a word of rebellion to me. I was 13 years old and she clearly was worried about the activist that was growing up in her home and thoughts were likely being brought back to her mind of how worried she had been when her own daughter sang at the murdered black boy, Emmet Tills funeral, in defiance of the ongoing brutality that regularly occurred as a usually unquestioned happening back then. Having raised me from an infant, Grandmother Alberta knew my stubbornness was beyond being forbidden to speak. However, I understood, it was her way of guiding me with her wisdom, to make peace with the aim of mine in going forward. To the piano, harmonising vocals, writing lyrics, I go. https://m.youtube/watch?v=Sn8NgXPKpFw
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 09:51:51 +0000
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