Singing for Peace in New York City
by Keri Brenner
January 8, 2010
Read more about our January 18, 2010 concert
If the longing for peace flows deep in everyone's soul, then Lloyd Walworth and two other gorge singers will swim in that universal sea this month in New York City.
"I just want to be a little part of being an agent for peace," said Walworth, director of Cascade Singers Community Choir in The Dalles. "That's the reason for doing this."
Walworth, choir director at The Dalles Wahtonka High School for the last 38 years, will travel to the Big Apple along with fellow Cascade Singers Barbara Haren of The Dalles and Linda Taylor of Hood River. They will join more than 100 singers from around the world to perform "The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace," in Lincoln Center on Jan. 18 - the official observance of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.
"The Cascade Singers received this invitation because of the quality and high level of musicianship demonstrated by the singers and the exceptional recommendations given by Mr. Walworth's choral colleagues," said Dr. Jonathan Griffith, artistic director and principal conductor for the Distinguished Concerts International of New York, the event's organizer.
The piece, by composer Karl Jenkins, is sung in juxtaposition with the giant-screen airing of a black and white video showing war scenes. Jenkins wrote the piece at the dawn of the millennium in 2000 and dedicated it to the victims of the Kosovo crisis. The CD was released on Sept. 10, 2001, a day before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"I saw this performed in 2008 in Copenhagen, at the Eighth World Symposium on Choral Music," Walworth said. "I was struck by it."
At the time, Walworth spoke with Griffith about the possibility of performing the piece in the United States. A year later, he said he was thrilled to get the invitation.
In addition to the chance to spend five days in New York rehearsing and then performing with people from all over the world, Walworth will enjoy a chance to fulfill a promise to his brother, fellow musician Leonard Walworth, who lives in Manhattan.
"In 2006, when I had prostate cancer and then surgery, my brother in New York was getting married," Walworth said.
"He sent me an arrangement for me to sing at his wedding, but I was too sick to go."
This month, two years after his brother's wedding, a now-healthy Walworth will get to make good on his wish to perform for his brother.
"He's trying to get tickets for the show," Walworth said.
Walworth said he feels that performing Jenkins' work will be a gift for him to both give to the public and to receive in his own inner sense of wellbeing.
"It's a very compelling piece," he said. "The visions of war, and over that, you're hearing choir music of peace."
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