{"id":34408,"date":"2020-09-10T11:11:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-10T17:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/?post_type=journalarticle&p=34408"},"modified":"2024-10-10T11:43:57","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T17:43:57","slug":"joel-thompsons-work-lights-the-way","status":"publish","type":"journalarticle","link":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/pt\/journalarticle\/joel-thompsons-work-lights-the-way\/","title":{"rendered":"O trabalho de Joel Thompson ilumina o caminho"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Composer Joel Thompson has a precious gift. He possesses what Shinichi Suzuki called a beautiful heart. It is evidenced in his music, a large body of which focuses on the Black experience, both painful and joyful. Thompson is especially able to see and to articulate the anguish of a people who have been systematically silenced. His compositions speak to the precariousness of the Black experience and to recurrent trauma. Accordingly, they are getting much deserved attention during these tumultuous times. Thompson\u2019s work fills a need for music that has the power to open the soul and bring both audience and musician to a place of greater understanding and greater capacity for connection and healing. Through his generosity, Thompson revisits that space over and over in the work he produces, giving us insight so that we too can see and, more aptly, feel the anguish of racial oppression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had the pleasure of meeting Joel at a family friendly summer chamber music weekend when he was still a teenager. There, I witnessed an impromptu moment of musical banter between some of the musicians. Already a highly skilled pianist and fluent in musical genres of both classical and jazz, what struck me then was not just his versatility or his virtuosity but his eagerness to engage, to include, to bring out the best in others. Now at age 31, Mr. Thompson has had works performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Master Chorale, Los Angeles Master Chorale, EXIGENCE, and the San Francisco Gay Men\u2019s Chorus. His Opera, The Snowy Day, based on Ezra Jack Keats\u2019s beloved children\u2019s classic by the same title, was scheduled to be premiered earlier this year but due to the corona pandemic will be premiered by the Houston Grand Opera in December 2021. Thompson\u2019s most acclaimed composition, Seven Last Words of the Unarmed, is a rare musical masterpiece\u2014winner of the 2018 American Prize for Choral Composition. The work hinges upon the words of seven unarmed Black men who died at the hands of the police. It is transporting, deeply moving and profound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preparing myself for the interview, I listened to Thompson\u2019s \u201cHold Fast to Dreams.\u201d I was struck by the contrasts\u2014the opening proclamation of the Negro spiritual \u201cFree at Last,\u201d the piano\u2019s whole tone descension as that proclamation quickly becomes diminished, dissonant, bitter, like the promise of Reconstruction. The ethereal swells that sustain the dream, the open harmonies and expansion into the upper registers, take on qualities of a holy choir and a Greek chorus, witnessing. The dream, a hallucination\u2014haunting, ephemeral, airy, beautiful. The tenor and bass join the piano following Langston Hughes\u2019 strident lyrics, \u201cDoes it stink like rotten meat?\u201d The piano runs up the steps of a whole tone scale that transports us somewhere over the rainbow and then explodes into a cascade as we hold fast in a heavenly realm where we can discern the dream and its distortion. In this short classical work, which weaves in elements of jazz, Broadway, and heaven, we gain a visceral understanding of the wonky contradictions of America coming to terms with its racist legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[size=120]How do you process the struggle in the streets right now? And how do you translate that struggle into the music that you are bringing to the world?[\/size]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well I process that struggle first as a human being, not as an artist. It is difficult as a Black man to process. This has been going on for some time now and I\u2019ve written a lot of pieces in response to the tragedies. As a human being there is that immediate pang of grief. There\u2019s that immediate anger sometimes\u2014a lot of pain. And then one looks to one\u2019s passions, mine being music and the composition thereof, and try to see how one can take one\u2019s artistry and apply it to this wound that keeps on being re-opened. \u201cSeven Last Words\u201d was written five years ago. And I\u2019ve written \u201cHold Fast to Dreams\u201d and \u201cCaged Birds Sings for Freedom\u201d and any number of other pieces addressing this scourge of violence and It\u2019s easy to feel as if it\u2019s all futile, that it\u2019s all useless because it keeps happening. But as an artist I can\u2019t hold onto that, because that brings me down to despair; and I think that hope is a wellspring of my creativity, and I still have to hold onto hope. It is a choice. It is a difficult choice. It might not even be the most rational choice, but I hope that my art can continue to create a space for empathy, a space for education, a space for compassionate imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this present moment it has been difficult not only because of just the grief in response to George Floyd\u2019s death and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and Tony McDade and the list goes on; but also because we are in a pandemic that is disproportionately affecting communities of color. It makes you recognize that the behemoth we are facing is systemic racism and that\u2019s embedded in the fabric of our society. And while it seems that there is a reckoning going on, there have been many points throughout American history in which we have felt that there is a reckoning. We also can realize how easy it is to be lulled into a sense of complacency and end up preserving the status quo. So as an artist, I\u2019m trying to avoid those pitfalls and to keep centering the Black experience in my work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But also I\u2019m realizing that there needs to be an awakening of conscience for most of White America. We need to awaken the conscience. I keep thinking of the photographs on the postcards of lynchings and looking at how it was a family event. And people brought their children to these things. We talk a lot about Black trauma. I think in order to really heal society we need to address the trauma of Whiteness as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s my job as an artist but it\u2019s something that I\u2019m thinking about, in response to this present moment, that there were children present at these lynchings and I\u2019m sure that those children knew in their gut that this was wrong. But, when every noble member of your society from the sheriff to the pastor to your own parents are bringing you to this thing, it justifies the dehumanization and murder of this other human being who looks different than you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think my response as an artist to this present moment will be trying to unpack the ways in which the dehumanization of Black people and the persistent mechanisms of violence towards Black people are allowed to persist because of our inability to confront our identity. We need introspection. We need to keep looking inward at how we move through this world and look at our past and how that\u2019s informing our present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve caught me at a moment where I keep going back to those postcards. \u2019Cause those kids might be in assisted living facilities right now. But there is a trauma that they experienced. If intergenerational trauma is true in the Black experience, and you see the manifestations of that in our lived experience, then the same must be true for our White brothers and sisters. Why are we still dealing with the same struggle that parents and grandparents and great grandparents have fought? We are refusing to look inward and holding ourselves accountable and providing a space for restorative justice. There\u2019s a lot that I don\u2019t even know that art can fix but I want to be a part of that conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[size=120]Is it a burden to be the voice of an anguished people and an anguished time? [\/size]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t really consider myself to be a voice for all Black people. The idea of speaking for a people\u2014while it may seem like that on the surface, I\u2019m really speaking for myself. It\u2019s all I can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I hope that when I do approach my art with honesty and vulnerability that it does create room for other people to respond in kind with their own honesty and vulnerability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I were to aim to be a sort of mouthpiece for revolution then my music would not sound the same. I am speaking to my own anguish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to recognize that Black people are not a monolith, that my particular experience of being Black in this country is very different given that my ancestors are more a part of the colonial oppression in the Caribbean. And while I have learned to be Black in this country, it is still different than that of the American descendants of slavery. But the present moment is no respecter of legacy or history. No one is going to stop and ask me if I\u2019m Jamaican or not. So I don\u2019t know if I would say that I speak for a people, I speak for myself but at the same time, if I focus my craft in an honest and vulnerable way, I do hope that it creates space for other people to bring their artistry and their ears and their spirits to what I create.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[size=120]Have you had personal experiences that informed your understanding of the social injustice that is at the core of some of your music? [\/size]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes. I wrote the piece [\u201cSeven Last Words of the Unarmed\u201d] when I was living in Cuthbert, Georgia, teaching at a small two-year college. In Cuthbert, the upkeep of the houses, the upkeep of the roads, changes as you go from one side of the town to the other, and it\u2019s a one-stoplight town. It\u2019s a very stark difference from one side to the other\u2014who is living there, what their houses look like, what cars are driven, what occupations are held by the residents. And so that was the space in which I was processing the lack of justice in response to Eric Garner\u2019s death. So you can see how the environment played a role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also I was one of a few\u2014maybe two of us\u2014Black professors at this college that was predominantly Black. So for that reason, my office hours were filled with students who I didn\u2019t even teach talking to me about racism inside and outside of the classroom. One of my students in my music theory class was handing out flyers for an event she was a part of. She was going to the motel to put up flyers on the bulletin board; she was met with managers who said, \u201cWe don\u2019t serve your kind here.\u201d And this is 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When [my students] would go to Florida to go to the beach they would encounter stores with signs basically saying no Black people allowed. These things do persist in rural areas of this country. So, just being in that part of the country played a role, yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yes, I was stopped a couple of times on dark rural passageways going from [grocery shopping in] Albany back to Cuthbert. Those were scary experiences. Yes, I was stopped multiple times in Atlanta. Yes, I was pumping gas at a QT in Decatur and someone drove by in a truck and yelled the N-word at me for no reason, destroying my day. But those things happen with enough space in between that you start to forget, but not enough space in between so that you still remember it in your bones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[size=120]Growing up, did you get what people now are calling, \u201cthe talk.\u201d telling you how to behave if you have an encounter with the police?[\/size]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes definitely. And the talk\u2014many people, now that the talk has entered the social consciousness, many people think that it\u2019s a one-time thing, like the birds and the bees. But the talk probably happened at least 15 times. There\u2019s a continual fear, especially as the eldest son, leaving the house. Driving for the first time. Going out of state for the first time. The talk was constant. I finished my master\u2019s and I was driving down to Cuthbert. I was 24 and I still got the talk then. That was just seven years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*[size=120]What gave you the courage to pursue what some might call a soft field? Were you encouraged by your family? And have your feelings about music as a profession changed over time?[\/size] *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The communal aspect was encouraged. I played for church. I started choirs and conducted a string orchestra at church and all of that was encouraged, but that was supposed to be not a profession but a sort of side avocation. I also had a passion to be a part of healing in some way. And so as a profession, medicine was a logical step. So, I pursued that in undergrad. I was pre-med and also music and I tried to sustain that as long as I could, even taking a year off after my undergrad to make sure that I was making the right decision. I shadowed my uncle who was an ob\/gyn in Jamaica\u2014scrubbed in, delivered babies, did hysterectomies, watched surgeries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wouldn\u2019t say that I gave up medicine for the other. I believe that I\u2019m practicing medicine on a different scale, in a different medium. I\u2019m still in the business of trying to heal. I\u2019m still in the business of public health, and I think a part of that is addressing the soul and music provides an opportunity for me to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[size=120]So, I know that you do several kinds of music; how do you balance your classical and your jazz, and your church music; and are there other things that you would like to mention in that mix?[\/size]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well I think that the older I get, the more I don\u2019t care about the distinctions between genres, the more I see them as unnecessary boundaries that need to be blurred. My love of jazz and the freedom of improvisation and the complexity of the harmonies and the emotional nuances that they can project informs my classical compositional craft. My experience in church music really allowed me to drive into the cycle that is art creating community and community creating art. And that also informs my compositional craft in a very key way, my connection to liturgical templates really informs \u201cSeven Last Words of the Unarmed,\u201d which is based on the seven last words of Christ. It\u2019s all connected. So I\u2019m no longer in the business of trying to separate the music that I am passionate about. I have playlists that have Esperanza Spalding followed by Samuel Barber followed by Jacob Collier followed by Kendrick Lamar\u2014everything. I\u2019m in the business of trying to find the truth, the capital-T truth of everything that I\u2019m listening to. There is so much that can be learned from listening to music that moves my soul, music that I love and even music that I don\u2019t initially love and grow to love. I even listen to music I don\u2019t like to listen to so I can figure out why. That process allows me to learn about myself and about the music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[size=120]Have you always operated with that understanding and has your success enabled you to embrace that approach?[\/size]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, I have not always thought that way. There is a thought process that in order to step into a classical space one has to leave one\u2019s Blackness at the door. And you leave your Blackness there at the threshold and you walk through and now you are in the hallowed halls of Beethoven and Brahms and Bach\u2014and it leads to a fragmentation of spirit. But the reason that we fragment is real because if one is to bring one\u2019s Blackness into a classical space\u2014a predominantly White space\u2014the question then becomes, is it still classical music? And we know that in the fiber of our beings that if I were to bring the rhythms that move my soul, if I were to bring the harmonies and the way that they move through such specific textures of singing, if a specific style or timbre of singing were being used in this context, would it still be classical? is the question. And that\u2019s hard when an integral part of who you are has to be left at the door before you enter this space which you love, and your heart speaks that language of classical music. So that\u2019s led to this present moment when I\u2019m trying my hardest to not have my spirit fragmented in that way. And even though my heart speaks classical music, it also speaks a language that\u2019s embedded in my DNA and in the culture in which I was raised. I want to bring all of who I am to the table when I\u2019m creating music. I\u2019m in the position now that\u2019s quite precarious I think, in that I\u2019m still not sure if I can bring all of who I am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cSeven Last Words\u201d was written five years ago but only now is being relatively accepted. No one would touch it. Four years ago, people ripped their programs and stormed out of buildings when the piece was being programmed. If I were to open the floodgates and bring all of who I am, I expect the same response now because that\u2019s what happened four years ago, five years ago. I\u2019m still intending to hold true to myself. I\u2019m still intending to be as vulnerable and honest as I was five years ago, but I am painfully aware of an audience right now. And it\u2019s very difficult. I\u2019m realizing the height of the walls I have erected that will prevent me from expressing myself in a way that might conflict with the powers that be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[size=120]You\u2019ve internalized the rules.[\/size]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, I\u2019ve internalized the rules. It\u2019s what led to success in navigating White spaces. I really do believe so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[size=120]You worked with a multiracial choir of young men in Seven Last Words of the Unarmed. How do the choir members receive your work, and what is it like for you to work with them? [\/size]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with the University of Michigan Men\u2019s Glee Club was an interesting experience and I was aware that it was a predominantly White choir in a predominantly White institution, but yet the conductor, Dr. Eugene Rogers, was Black. He was the one who decided to premier the work, and we were both concerned about what that would look like, what that would feel like to learn it. Some members of the choir decided not to sing that concert and not to sing the piece. Some thought it conflicted with their politics, some thought it was disrespectful to police officers. And for whatever reason they chose not to engage with the work. Those that did stay though were introduced to a pedagogy that was rooted in Dr. Roger\u2019s focus on three elements: love, life, and loss. He tried to make it as universal as possible while still being specific to these men. And so, every member of the choir was aware of the circumstances surrounding each death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was frank discussion among the choral members. A few Black members of the choir felt a little uncomfortable, because we are so used to code-switching from space to space. The emotions that one would carry in Black spaces with family and friends and community back home were all of the sudden present in this predominantly White space where we don\u2019t allow those emotions to be present. And so it led some of the Black members of the choir to express to me that they were uncomfortable that the piece was sort of breaking down the barriers between their separate well-defined spaces that they move through. But in the end Dr. Rogers created an environment of healing, honesty, and respect, respecting these men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will say, though, that it is moving to see the words of these [seven] men on the lips and in the lungs of people who are not connected to the same struggle in such a visceral way. It is very, very moving. It\u2019s healing in a way, because this is a message that Black men have been saying for centuries and to finally see those words escape White lips, it seems as if finally I am being understood or being heard or being listened to. That being said, there is a performance by the Morehouse Glee Club and the Florida A&M University Concert Choir together with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. As the kids say, \u201cIt hits different.\u201d You can see that people are singing and engaging with the work from their lived experience. That\u2019s a completely different feeling. They\u2019re feeling the words in their bones. The particular makeup of the choir does play a role not only in how the piece is received but also how it\u2019s produced, how it\u2019s shared, how it\u2019s staged. I do think that choral music provides that space for people to engage with struggles that are not their own. I think it has to be done in a very, very respectful way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has been a tradition of using the Black spiritual as a sort of bon-bon at the end of choral concerts. Because William Dawson\u2019s arrangements are so amazing, the Harry Burleigh arrangements are so amazing that people tend to use those as concert closers while ignoring the historical and emotional context surrounding the creation of these works, the transcription of these works. I do feel that more respect should be taken with these works and music that is born of slavery in a society that does not acknowledge the legacies of slavery that persist to this day. I think that\u2019s the least we can do as artists. I find that Seven Last Words is a continuation, it\u2019s part of the genealogy of the spiritual tradition, in that I am using music to redress the condition of Black existence in this country which is what spirituals were doing back in the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the same respect and care that one would extend to singing \u201cSometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child\u201d\u2014making sure that you are singing it with the correct nuance and honoring the tradition that it\u2019s born out of\u2014the same care should be taken with any music today that is responding to Black trauma. There is a way for it to be done disrespectfully, and I\u2019m very aware of that and I\u2019ve been present at some of those performances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why the website Sevenlastwords.org has a lot of resources developed by the University of Michigan Law School Professor Margo Schlanger, Dr. Eugene Rogers, Rachil Davids, and I, to encourage people to engage with the work and not be afraid of messing up for whatever reason but ways in which one can respectfully and healthily, engage with music that is speaking to current Black trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[size=120]Have you seen the choir members change as a result of embodying the powerful narrative of Black men whose lives have ended in racial violence at the hands of Whites?[\/size]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes. Yes, I have seen it. A lot of people have said that they didn\u2019t think about it [before]. And I don\u2019t even know if that\u2019s true. I think what\u2019s probably more true is that it\u2019s easy for non Black people to escape conversation concerning our current existence in this country and how precarious it can be at times due to the scourge of police brutality. But the piece creates a space where you can\u2019t run away from it. So, many of the White members of choirs that have performed it have thanked me for creating it because the process of working on the piece and living with the piece and then working to perform it creates a space where they cannot escape thinking about it. And so I\u2019m very fortunate that people have been willing to be vulnerable and share that with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think one has to recognize also how the pandemic has played a role in this current reckoning because it literally trapped us indoors and allowed us not to escape the conversation. And I think this reckoning would not have happened without the pandemic because there is no escape. We can\u2019t stop the conversation, say \u201cI\u2019m too uncomfortable\u201d and go watch a movie, because you\u2019re trapped inside. Many people have mentioned similar transformative experiences in engaging with this work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[size=120]Some people would say that the world of classical music is not open to Black people of color, not welcoming, or not part of the Black experience. Do you feel that your music is being heard by the audiences you intend it for? [\/size]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Seven Last Words there was no audience intended, but everything I\u2019ve written since then I\u2019ve been aware of an audience. I am hoping that the audience will expand, that the audience will not just be the typical classical audience which is predominantly homogenous in terms of race, class, and many times, gender. I\u2019m hoping that my mere creating music in this genre creates space for audiences to also change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know that more practical work needs to be done to expand our audience and that comes down to music education and access to these performances. And so I\u2019m not naive enough to believe that my own composition alone is advocacy enough that will then trickle down to change the classical music scene and the audience and what it looks like. I know that music education\u2014access to instruments, access to lessons\u2014these are practical things that can change the landscape of classical music and those are things that I want to get involved in as soon as I possibly can. I\u2019m right now focusing on how to sustain a compositional career and finish a degree, but yes, I want those things to be a part of my artistry moving forward so that we can change what classical music audiences look like now and expand the scope of this universal art form that we try to claim it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[size=120]What advice do you have for music educators toward that goal?[\/size]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My advice is rooted in the bedrock of my compositional craft which is the art of listening. We have to listen. We have to listen to our students. We have to listen to our community. And we have to listen to ourselves. I think too often we allow the indoctrination of our current music education to get in the way of actual education. I subscribe to the pedagogy that allows the student to be their full selves. To bring all of who they are into the door even if the curriculum that we have doesn\u2019t allow room for them. I think we should make room and that requires listening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I taught a music appreciation class and the curriculum was typical. It was called music appreciation, but it was really classical music appreciation. It moved through the periods: Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Twentieth Century, etc. And I listened to the students that were coming to this college and I recognized that many of them came from backgrounds where they had no idea about classical music. They had no idea about the joys and the transcendent experiences that you can have with classical music. So I had to listen to them and allow for all of who they are to get into the door. And so we are studying Gregorian chant and we\u2019re looking at syllabic, neumatic chant and melismatic chant, and in explaining these different types of Gregorian chant, I paired it with R&B, There\u2019s neumatic R&B, There\u2019s melismatic R&B and there\u2019s syllabic R&B. Melismatic R&B is the most popular. And I compared the runs of melismas in Gregorian chant to even the arias in Baroque operas, and compared those to the runs in Mariah Carey and Beyonc\u00e9 and No Name and whoever is singing so they understand that music is music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I compared with something that they are more familiar with and then pointed them in the direction of something that I\u2019ve experienced as transcendent. I think that\u2019s fundamental. When we were talking about symphonic program music, like Tchaikovsky\u2019s Romeo and Juliet, we also looked at concept albums. We looked at Kendrick Lamar\u2019s To Pimp a Butterfly and Pink Floyd\u2019s The Wall. The idea of creating a whole musical object that is referring to an extra-musical idea is not old and is not new. It\u2019s timeless. Tchaikovsky and Smetana, they were doing the same thing that Marvin Gaye was doing with What\u2019s Going On. [I was] finding a way to connect different types of music to these same musical concepts and encourage them as amateur musicians to engage in whatever way they see fit, but also know that there is a treasure trove of knowledge and truth and wisdom and they can have access to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[size=120]Do you have any advice to young Joel or to the parents of young Black and Brown children who might be reading this? And more universally, to parents and educators in general?[\/size]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think parents and students should focus on the curriculum at hand, focus on doing the best you can with whatever you are given. Still look for the capital-T truth that is embedded in every music that you engage with. Think outside of whatever you are presented simultaneously. So your Clementi Sonatinas or whatever\u2014focus on making them as amazing as you possibly can. Bring who you are to the table. Express yourself through it. Even if they might not be historically accurate, still allow yourself room for that amount of experimentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel that the journey with music is in many ways a journey of self discovery, a way to learn about yourself. Sometimes music pedagogy, music education, can be presented as a very dogmatic, systematic way of just following the rules. Always ask questions. Why should I do it this way? Many times you will find that the answers are correct\u2014why should you start your Baroque trills from the top\u2014that doesn\u2019t mean you should go around breaking all the rules. Ask why, and then if it\u2019s not satisfactory to you, find your own ways of expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parents should encourage your kids to make up music. If a kid brings a tune to them, lift it up! Say it\u2019s amazing! Even if it\u2019s something that you might not understand, it\u2019s amazing, encourage that! I had that encouragement. The first things I wrote, the first things I arranged were unplayable. But I was still encouraged. And it\u2019s led me to stick with this journey of self discovery in the field of music and I\u2019m so grateful for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[size=120]You\u2019ve talked about listening. I\u2019d like to end with a quote from Shinichi Suzuki and ask you to share your thoughts about what resonates for you: \u201cListening until we remember is not enough. We must listen until we cannot forget.\u201d [\/size]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me the part that resonates the most is listening until we don\u2019t forget. I think listening is an art to itself. Listening is what separates the amazing artists from the rest. The best choirs are the ones that listen to each other the best. The best orchestras are like a uniform organism. They listen to each other so intently. It\u2019s one of the unsung characteristics of music making. Much more emphasis is put on performance and all of the things surround that. But listening as a musician is so essential\u2014to any craft to any discipline within it. But I also think why I\u2019m so attracted to listening as an art form is that it is the art form that will save the world. I know I\u2019m an idealist but we as a society, if we could value that art of listening to each other, a lot of our issues will be solved. I really sincerely believe that. I think a lot of what\u2019s been healing about this reckoning is that we\u2019re finally listening to each other. There\u2019s a lot of anger that\u2019s being expressed\u2014anger in healthier ways than others. But still people have listened and it\u2019s a necessary part of growth and healing, just as fires have to take away the underbrush for new life to form in a forest. So is listening to the anger of this present moment. And so I do hope that America is listening to this present moment very, very carefully so that we don\u2019t forget. We have so easily forgotten the struggles of the past and we find ourselves in this endless loop of struggle and promise and then re-entrenchment of the status quo and oppression and then struggle ahead. If we truly listen to this present moment so that we don\u2019t forget, I do think that healing is possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Joel Thompson<\/strong> is a graduate of Emory University with a BA in music and MM in choral conducting. He is currently a student at the Yale School of Music. In 2017 Thompson was a post-graduate fellow in Arizona State University\u2019s Ensemble Lab\/Projecting All Voices Initiative and a composition fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School, where he studied with composers Stephen Hartke and Christopher Theofanidis and won the 2017 Hermitage Prize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

O compositor Joel Thompson tem um dom precioso. Ele possui o que Shinichi Suzuki chamou de um belo cora\u00e7\u00e3o. Isso \u00e9 evidenciado em sua m\u00fasica, que, em grande parte, enfoca a experi\u00eancia negra, tanto dolorosa quanto alegre. Thompson \u00e9 especialmente capaz de ver e articular a ang\u00fastia de um povo que tem sido sistematicamente silenciado....<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"pmpro_default_level":"0","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":""},"article-tag":[791,800,795],"journalsection":[],"class_list":["post-34408","journalarticle","type-journalarticle","status-publish","hentry","article-tag-contemporary-music","article-tag-interview","article-tag-women-composers","pmpro-has-access"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"article-tag":[{"value":791,"label":"Contemporary Music"},{"value":800,"label":"Interview"},{"value":795,"label":"Women Composers"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/journalarticle\/34408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/journalarticle"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/journalarticle"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"article-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-tag?post=34408"},{"taxonomy":"journalsection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/journalsection?post=34408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}