Unity Can Be Created in Unusual Ways

By PAULA RUDOLPH

When I heard from a friend last summer that a Santa Barbara choral concert to commemorate September 11th was being planned, my immediate response was that this was a great idea. But I also wondered whether uniting the area's many choruses to sing Mozart's "Requiem" was possible in the short span of two months.

"Santa Barbara Sings," as the concert was called, was part of an international movement to sing the Requiem as Sept.11 moved through the world's time zones. Curious about this "Rolling Requiem," I logged on to rollingrequiem.org and was stunned by what I found.

Organizers in Seattle had used the Internet to recruit volunteers from across the world to sing on Sept. 11. The Requiem would serve as a vehicle for the shared expression of our collective grief and our hope for peace. Working through the Web site, I was overcome with the symbolic importance of this endeavor and by the energy already devoted to it.

The site had touched the hearts of singers in countries as diverse as Japan, Ireland, Russia, and Brazil, and in countless locations across the United States. Within minutes, I knew it would be a meaningful and effective way to transcend the horrific realities of the terrorists' attacks--and I knew I wanted to participate.

Rehearsals began on August 7 at an area church. Each Wednesday night, members of four local community choirs (Santa Barbara Choral Society; Santa Barbara Master Chorale; Opera Santa Barbara Chorus; and the Santa Barbara Quire of Voyces), as well as individuals from churches and other singing groups, converged in a hot, cramped rehearsal room to begin the process of mastering Mozart.

Most noticeable in that room, however, were the positive energy, the good will, and an overriding sense of gratitude for the opportunity to join in such a unique and meaningful enterprise. Two hundred singers, many from groups who typically competed with each other for recognition and audiences, were committed to creating something beautiful out of something that destroyed so many lives and left so many scars.

Many of us, including a large contingent of UCSB faculty and staff, wondered how we were going to make it through the performance. We knew this was not a typical concert performance, but a memorial service and tribute to the heroic efforts of fire and police personnel. We, too, were grieving for the lives lost and were moved by the courage of those who tried to help.

But we sang, each of us inspired by forces larger than any of us. We sang to diffuse the sense of helplessness we felt in response to Sept. 11, 2001. We sang to show that we cared, and we sang to contribute, in the way we knew best, to our own healing and to the healing of others.

As many now know, our collective work resulted in large audiences at the Arlington Theater and the Courthouse Sunken Gardens.

It was a musical and personal experience unlike any I had ever had before. In the end, the Rolling Requiem grassroots effort resulted in 200 musical events in 26 countries, involving more than 17,000 singers and almost 5,000 instrumental musicians. What a privilege and honor it was to participate in this global outpouring of love and compassion, demonstrating to those who killed individuals that they could not kill the spirit that binds us together, not just in this country but around the world.

So, a time of mourning became, in part, a time to give thanks for our many other blessings. As we move into the holiday season, let us express gratitude for all that is good in our lives and, ultimately, for life itself.

Paula Rudolph, UCSB's sexual
harassment and Title IX officer,
has sung in local choruses for 17 years.