Healing Trauma Through Poetry and Music
Commencing Syracuse University’s annual Remembrance Week, the Humanities Center’s Syracuse Symposium on “Community” features VPA events that demonstrates the power of music and poetry to memorialize the lives lost on Pan Am Flight 103.
The musical and poetic exploration in an October 20th Malmgren Concert Series performance by composer Kurt Erickson and poet librettist Brian Turner, along with an ensemble of singers and musicians, is a testament to art’s restorative and commemorative properties. The program includes three pieces: “Here Bullet,” which captures soldiers’ experiences in Iraq; Johannes Brahms’s Piano Trio in C minor; and finally, “Each Moment Radiant,” a world premiere work created in recognition of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Following the performance, the artists will talk about "Healing Trauma Through Poetry and Music."
In the process of developing “Each Moment Radiant,” Erickson traveled to Scotland and interviewed first responders who were on duty during the terrorist attack. “Each Moment Radiant” thus commemorates the 35 SU students whose lives were lost on Pan Am Flight 103 and captures the attack’s impact on the town of Lockerbie.
Kathleen Roland-Silverstein, one of three singers performing in "Each Moment Radiant," and also the lead organizer for Sunday's artist talk, appreciates how Kurt and Brian have managed to bring in the horror of what happened while also foregrounding "the real redemption and love of the people who were involved."
Roland-Silverstein has first-hand experience seeing how the performing arts can address tragedy in a heart-rending, yet beautiful way. In 2007, she sang Cambodian-American composer Chinary Ung’s piece, “Aura,” on tour, a work which Ung wrote after his entire family was killed during the Cambodian genocide carried out by the Khmer Rouge.
“I was in Cambodia and I saw the effect on the people, even years later, of what had happened. [I saw] how my friend Chinary Ung, the composer, had managed to create something incredible,” said Roland-Silverstein. Similar to Ung’s own musical translation of tragedy, “Each Moment Radiant” aims to deliver a powerful remembrance to and for the Syracuse community.
Syracuse University will host Remembrance Week events, Oct. 20-26. “Healing Trauma Through Poetry and Music” invites us as a community to help carry the weight of tragedy while immersing in art’s restorative capacity. Sunday's inaugural performance offers a collective opportunity to engage with history through tribute and remembrance.
“People forget history, and I think that's so awful," Roland-Silverstein added. "And when people forget history, they don't know how to move forward in their own time. I hope that people will never forget what happened to all of the passengers, including the 35 Syracuse students who were returning from a life changing event, a semester abroad.”