On Sunday, April 13, Songweavers had our annual concert, entitled “All My Life’s A Circle.” Songweavers is 110 women and 15 African style
Songweavers in dress rehearsal, practicing our sign language for “Take Good Care of Each Other.”
drummers reveling in the joy of music. It was our best concert yet because we were focused on the music, what we felt about it and the joy we felt singing together. We are an amateur choir, rehearsing weekly with few expectations, rallying to the challenge of a public performance, transcending our abilities and experience in one 90 minute concert a year. The results are far from perfect. They are electrifying.
Why do we sing?
We sing because we have to. We sing to share our love with others. We sing to open ourselves up to feelings, joy and connection. We sing because it makes us happy. We experience clear joy – in the music, in the vibrations created in and between each singer, and in the internal expansiveness created by group singing.
We feel connected to all the other singers, and to ourselves. The singing brings us home. We share that connection with the audience and receive their energy in return.
We sing for love; what else are we here for? This is our channel, singing songs, giving them to ourselves and to each other, to family and friends, for the sacred dissolution of separateness. Singing unifies in the moment of each breath, each note, each harmonic sound coming from each throat. We open ears, mouth and heart. One of our songs, “We Are A Circle,” written by Ellie Rolnick captures this feeling: “We are a circle, we are a web, woven together, thread upon thread, interconnected, we are as one you see, we are woven together you and me.”
Lisa Eberhardt, a long-time Songweaver who was unable to perform with us this semester wrote the following comment from the audience. “Watchin you all,…what I kept thinking about was the amazing opportunity it is, for so many people from so many places, to come together and make meaningful music together. I watched a grandfather… watching his grandchild ….in his daughter’s arms listen to his wife, her mother, her grandmother sing! I was in tears because that is what Songweavers is all about. Our Songweaver community singing to and with the greater community.”
That’s what we do when we sing.
Revel in connection.
Love the moment.
Sing our joy.
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