by Katie Pyne

This project would have incorporated elements of dance and meditation, in order to create an interactive and immersive performance. Due to the current COVID-19 situation, we were unable to fulfill our collaboration in order perform our program. Instead, I decided to "collaborate" with one of the most famous speeches and some of my closest friends. Although we are far apart, we managed connect and participate in music making together. Although we are not vocalists, we used the power of voice to connnect and interact with music while in isolation.

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We are living through a once in a lifetime pandemic, where things are happening around us that can be difficult to process and accept. We are told that we must be isolated from those that we love in order to protect the greater good. How are we to unite with one another while living in isolation? President John F. Kennedy gave his inaugural address on January 20, 1961, and is best remembered by the line “ My Fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”.  This part of the speech was directed solely at domestic initiatives and matters that lie in the hands of our people, addressing a generation that was “tempered by war and disciplined by a hard and bitter peace”. I have paired this famous speech with Bogoroditse Devo by Sergei Rachmaninoff, a piece from Rachmaninoff’s All Night Virgil, an a capella choral composition that consists of a setting of text taken from the Russian Orthodox All-Night Virgil. This piece is the Russian setting of “Ave Maria”, a traditional Catholic prayer asking for the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. As we endure a period of isolation, without the opportunity to collaborate musically, I experimented with two versions of this piece. I transcribed the piece for a french horn quartet, and began the experimental task of recording myself playing all four parts. I then asked some of my closest friends to record themselves singing this piece and put it together, as if we are all singing this beautiful piece together, though we are far apart. Although I had the benefit of endless recording attempts and editing, nothing compared to the result of human connection and experiencing music together.