The World House Choir pictured at a 2018 performance. (Photo by Matt Minde)
World House Choir inspires election hope
- Published: November 2, 2024
“Hands joined together as hearts beat as one, emboldened by truth, we dare to proclaim we are standing on the side of love.”
These lyrics from the choral work “Standing On the Side of Love,” written by Jason Shelton, are a kind of mantra for the World House Choir; under the direction of Catherine Roma, for more than a decade the choir’s repertoire has put forward messages of unity, solidarity and social justice.
On the eve of a contentious presidential election, though, the choir aims to bolster its audiences this weekend with a solid and resounding sense of hope.
The World House Choir will perform “Hold On/Hold Hope” Saturday, Nov. 2, at 7 p.m., and Sunday, Nov. 3, at 4 p.m., at the Foundry Theater. Admission is free.
The program’s title is inspired, in part, by one of two pieces arranged for the World House Choir included in the lineup of music for the concerts: the African American spiritual “Hold On,” arranged by Jeremy Winston.
As the song’s lyrics — updated during the Civil Rights Movement — entreat: “The only chain that we can stand is the chain of hand in hand/Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.”
“I thought that was really relevant — we’re all trying to hold on,” Roma told the News this week. “People are feeling a lot of anxiety and angst about this election. … We want to create an environment of uplift and keep the people feeling hopeful.”
Also arranged for the choir is a choral version of the song “Road to Freedom,” written by singer/songwriter Lenny Kravitz for the 2023 biopic “Rustin,” which follows the life of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. The choir will be accompanied by a brass trio for the song, assembled and led by well-known Dayton trombone player and music educator G. Scott Jones, whom local residents might have seen playing trombone at events that protested the 2014 police killing of John Crawford III.
The program will also feature some songs familiar to ardent supporters of the World House Choir, including a choral version of The Staple Singers’ “If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me),” featuring Antioch College professor and Coretta Scott King Center Director Queen Meccasia Zabriskie; “Standing On the Side of Love”; a reprise of the final section of “Weather: Stand the Storm,” written by Rollo Dilworth and inspired by Claudia Rankine’s poem “Weather,” and which the choir debuted this spring; and “Take Care of this House,” from the Leonard Bernstein musical “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Roma said the choir has also incorporated a sense of humor into the concert’s program, particularly in the form of the song “Disenfranchised,” written by Minnesota composer Elizabeth Alexander last year.
“She’s from Minneapolis, but I swear she wrote it for Ohio,” Roma said.
To the accompaniment of a jaunty, ragtime-esque piano, the lyrics of “Disenfranchised” take a wryly comic look at the fraught history of the vote in the U.S., from its infancy as a right only extended to “white, landowning men” to the current battle to stop gerrymandering — which Ohio citizens have been trying to rectify for decades, including on this year’s ballot.
Roma directed a performance of “Disenfranchised” this summer at the GALA Festival in Minneapolis, where a consortium of seven women’s choruses sang: “And now you’re Disenfranchised!/Just look at how those lines are drawn/(Leapin’ Lizards!)/You had thought the game was finished/But your vote has been diminished/By the upper echelon.”
The World House Choir will incorporate the classical music tradition into its program for the weekend with the inclusion of “How Lovely Are the Messengers That Preach Us the Gospel of Peace” from Felix Mendelssohn’s “St. Paul” oratorio.
“What we want to do by singing that song is elevate the people who are working together to bring peace,” Roma said. “There are people in Palestine, in Israel and in this country working across huge chasms to say, ‘How can we get there?’ This song celebrates the peacemakers.”
Considering the program’s lead-up to the election, Roma said the choir wanted to open the program with a patriotic song. Acknowledging that patriotic music in the U.S. sometimes ignores or obscures the complexities of American history while aiming to rhapsodize it, the choir considered its creed: “To perform music that motivates and inspires our communities toward justice, diversity, inclusion and equality as we strive for peace and build our web of mutuality.”
Was there a song that fit that mission statement? The choir considered one that did: “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” written 124 years ago by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson and long considered the “Black National Anthem.” The choir has performed the song many times during its tenure, including annually at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day community event.
“We know the song and its history, it’s an amazing piece and we adore the song and the arrangement we sing,” Roma said. “But we sing it a lot, and we wanted to find something else.”
Ultimately, the choir landed on “A Song of Peace: A Patriotic Song,” which is more well-known by its first lines: “This Is My Song.” The lyrics were composed in the 1930s by poet Lloyd Stone, and the song is traditionally performed to the tune of “Finlandia,” composed by Jean Sibelius. The lyrics read, in part:
“This is my home, the country where my heart is/Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine/But other hearts in other lands are beating/With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.”
Roma said she and the World House Choir want “Hold On/Hold Hope” to help alleviate whatever folks are feeling as they head into Election Day. Whether we celebrate or mourn, she said, it’s natural for communities to come together in song.
“Music goes into places where words alone cannot,” she said. “If you can feel that you’re not alone for one minute by singing and being together in community, that’s a release. I hope that’s what’s going to happen.
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