A choral conductor’s creative response to the epidemic

Professor of Music Tim Harbold conducts the Wheaton Chorale and Chamber Singers and oversees Wheaton’s Music Performance program. With the cancellation of performances this spring, he has begun to explore new outlets for musical creativity. He writes:

During this battle against COVID-19, people across the globe are facing profound losses of so many kinds. Personal to me, and close to my heart, my choral world is grieving deeply our loss — for now — of the life-giving and nurturing gift of singing together, breathing as one, and spinning music out of the very air. The spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” has been on my mind lately, speaking to the pain of lost lives, but also our acute feelings of disorientation and displacement. As always, I look to song to work out my deepest emotions, and in this video project I have paired a recording from a few years back with searing images of the day. Perhaps my effort to grapple with my own emotions will resonate with you, too.

 

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