What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1496629
APRIL 9-15, 2023 WHAT'S UP! 9 Caldwell explains. "I was hopeful that all students would be on board for the performance, but I was wrong." According to Caldwell, several students "decided that they couldn't sing the work as a matter of personal faith, and so they left the group as a result." "All of the remaining singers agreed to begin the semester, and therefore begin their 'consideration,' with the shared belief that Matthew Shepard didn't deserve to be murdered," he says. "My goal isn't to push a narrative on them, my goal is to tell the story and let them come to their own conclusions. "Most of our students now were born after 1998, so this event did not occur in their lifetime," Caldwell goes on. "They did not know who Matthew Shepard was, but they all knew about the Pulse Nightclub shooting, and the more recent Club Q shooting in Colorado. The music is difficult, and the score is long, but the students in Schola Cantorum rolled up their sleeves and got to work. They come to rehearsal each day with an open mind, an open heart, and ready for the challenge." "When I first heard about this piece of music, I had no idea what it was," says Summer Matlock, an alto from Bentonville. "When Dr. Caldwell first explained the piece and its significance, I was excited that we were doing something that is incredibly applicable outside the classroom. I love choral music, but a lot of the older music doesn't have pertinence to social issues that are happening today." "It's true that some people have chosen not to participate in this concert, but the large majority of choir members are enthusiastic about it and are pouring themselves into the music," says Clayton Davis, a second-year tenor from Los Angeles, majoring in jazz. "Matthew's story deserves to be told and his life celebrated." Caldwell says even with the subject matter, "Considering Matthew Shepard" is beautiful music — a "fusion" of styles from a country ballad to gospel blues, "a movement set to early shape-note style, a movement like a German chorale, Broadway, jazz, etc. The work fuses many uniquely American styles together to tell the story of a unique American." "This is pretty music. But pretty is subjective," Caldwell says. "When confronted with that argument" — that the choir should simply sing "pretty music" — "one must realize that the sentence is missing words. It really means 'Why don't you just sing music that I THINK is pretty, on subjects I THINK are appropriate.' … The same with book bans, etc." Caldwell says he has "told the students why [this music] matters to me, but I would never suggest why it should matter to them. That is for them to decide." And they've had plenty of opportunities to think about it. "As we've been rehearsing this piece, [certain] groups have come to our campus with signs, bullhorns, and pamphlets, screaming their hateful rhetoric at students. There is a movement in the work that depicts this, as the Westboro Baptist Church protested Matthew Shepard's funeral. I watch the students walk past these protesters, only to come into class and then have to pretend to be one of them," Caldwell says. "Those days are particularly intense rehearsals, with raw emotion on display. I am immensely proud of our students and what they have accomplished with this piece. "My hope is that members of our community are brave enough to come hear it." "Most of our students now were born after 1998, so this event did not occur in their lifetime," Schola Cantorum director Stephen Caldwell says of "Considering Matthew Shepard." "They did not know who Matthew Shepard was, but they all knew about the Pulse Nightclub shooting, and the more recent Club Q shooting in Colorado." (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Andy Shupe) My goal isn't to push a narrative on them, my goal is to tell the story and let them come to their own conclusions. — Stephen Caldwell Director