Our 24 hour news cycle can tend to bombard us information about tragic events. While this can be helpful, it can also become dispiriting and disconcerting.
After news of the shooting in Colorado was announced, I asked Sequenza 21 contributors and community members to share musical excerpts that they find consolatory when a tragedy such as this occurs. Some provided me with video clips via YouTube. Others supplied SoundCloud links to their own pieces, written to respond to the chaos that is all too prevalent in our society.
Contributors: Steve Layton, Judah Adashi, James Stephenson, Rob Deemer, Ken Ueno, Jonathan Palmer Lakeland, James Ilgenfritz, Jerry Bowles, and yours truly. Tracks follow after the page break:
“Bonus” track:
Have a favorite you’d like to share? The comments section is open – but for musical selections, not OP/ED (plenty of other places for that right now!).
I don’t want to feel that I am promoting this or anything, but the part at 20:19 is especially mournful and/or comforting. Almost eternal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8Cev8CG6Bg (Kevin Volans: String Quartet No.6, for double string quartet)
Reaching back a bit – to Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1936 – Dona Nobis Pachem, Parts 5 & 6. The text chosen seems appropriate even now…
http://youtu.be/IRpfcF8NF7c