The Transformative Power of Classical Music
Probably a lot of you know the story of the two salesmen who went down to Africa in the 1900s. They were sent down to find if there was any opportunity for selling shoes, and they wrote telegrams back to Manchester. And one of them wrote, “Situation hopeless. Stop. They don’t wear shoes.” And the other one wrote, “Glorious opportunity They don’t have any shoes yet.”
Now, there’s a similar situation in the classical music world, because there are some people who think that classical music is dying. And there are some of us who think you ain’t seen nothing yet. And rather than go into statistics and trends, and tell you about all the orchestras that are closing, and the record companies that are folding, I thought we should do an experiment tonight. Actually, it’s not really an experiment, because I know the outcome.
You know, we were just in South Africa, and you can’t go to South Africa without thinking of Mandela in jail for 27 years. What was he thinking about? Lunch? No, he was thinking about the vision for South Africa and for human beings. This is about vision. This is about the long line. Like the bird who flies over the field and doesn’t care about the fences underneath, all right? So now, you’re going to follow the line all the way from B to E. And I’ve one last request before I play this piece all the way through. Would you think of somebody who you adore, who’s no longer there? A beloved grandmother, a lover – somebody in your life who you love with all your heart, but that person is no longer with you. Bring that person into your mind, and at the same time, follow the line all the way from B to E, and you’ll hear everything that Chopin had to say.
You may be wondering why I’m clapping. Well, I did this at a school in Boston with about 70 seventh-graders, and 12-year-olds. I did exactly what I did with you, and I explained the whole thing. At the end, they went crazy, clapping. I was clapping. They were clapping. Finally, I said, “Why am I clapping?” And one of them said, “Because we were listening.”
Think of it. 1,600 people, busy people, involved in all sorts of different things, listening, understanding, and being moved by a piece by Chopin. Now, that is something. Am I sure that every single person followed that, understood it, was moved by it? Of course, I can’t be sure.
But I’ll tell you what happened to me in Ireland during the Troubles, 10 years ago, and I was working with some Catholic and Protestant kids on conflict resolution. And I did this with them – a risky thing to do because they were street kids. And one of them came to me the next morning and he said, “You know, I’ve never listened to classical music in my life, but when you played that shopping piece …”
He said, “My brother was shot last year and I didn’t cry for him. But last night, when you played that piece, he was the one I was thinking about. And I felt the tears streaming down my face. And it felt really good to cry for my brother.” So I made up my mind at that moment that classical music is for everybody. Everybody.
So now, I have one last thought, which is that it really makes a difference what we say – the words that come out of our mouths. I learned this from a woman who survived Auschwitz, one of the rare survivors. She went to Auschwitz when she was 15 years old. And … And her brother was eight, and the parents were lost. And she told me this, she said, “We were in the train going to Auschwitz, and I looked down and saw my brother’s shoes were missing. I said, ‘Why are you so stupid, can’t you keep your things together for goodness’ sake?’” The way an elder sister might speak to a younger brother. Unfortunately, it was the last thing she ever said to him, because she never saw him again. He did not survive. And so when she came out of Auschwitz, she made a vow. She told me this. She said, “I walked out of Auschwitz into life and I made a vow. And the vow was, “I will never say anything that couldn’t stand as the last thing I ever say.” Now, can we do that? No. And we’ll make ourselves wrong and others wrong. But it is a possibility to live into.
“…He views his musical practice as a chance to enroll others in a journey, and the volunteers in his orchestras find that this journey–the chance to lean into possibility, to fail, to connect, to hear, and to be heard–changes their lives.
At the heart of possibility is change. The passion for change is available to everyone”
