Only a few short weeks after OMAG’s performance for Family Visitation Evening, we geared up for our second annual Spring Musicale in the Visitation Room of the Hope Center at the Grafton Reintegration Center. I had sent invitations to colleagues, friends, prisoner advocates in the Cleveland area. The men invited their family and friends. Our special guests were the Finney Oberlin Singers (a “pick-up” group of 12 men from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music & First Church in Oberlin UCC that I directed only for this occasion).
As I wrote in an earlier post (See “Light-Switch Moments”), the OMAG singers had reached an all-time high: confidence, security in singing a song in 3-part harmony, tackling more challenging repertoire, matching pitches and rhythms, and singing as an ensemble rather than a bunch of individuals. Their peak experience of the Family Evening continued to “flow” into the Spring Musicale 2017 performance.
After we sang, the men engaged the audience in a few minutes of “talk back.” I took this post-performance strategy from my sister colleague, Dr. Phyllis Gorfain, Founder/Director of Oberlin Drama at Grafton (ODAG), who beautifully implements talk-backs after each theatrical performance. Audience members dialog with the actors, in our case singers. The men articulated their learning patience, working collaboratively within the group, (my pushing them into new and sometimes “scary” musical things!), and the learning and “humanity” benefits to self by participating in choral music. It was an opportunity for the men’s individual voices to be heard.
SPRING MUSICALE 2017
Oberlin Music at Grafton (OMAG) Choir
All Things Bright and Beautiful Philip E. Silvey
Beauty Before Me Kristopher E. Lindquist
There is Peace Jim Papoulis
What a Wonderful World George David Weiss & Bob Thiele
OMAG Choir
Little Innocent Lamb Spiritual/arr. Marshall Bartholomew
Be Thou My Vision arr. Robert Hunter
Till the Stars Fall from the Sky Sally K. Albrecht/arr. Jay Althouse
Finney Oberlin Choir
Wade in the Water Spiritual/arr. Moses Hogan
Frobisher Bay James Gordon/arr. Braeden Ayres
And So It Goes Billy Joel/arr. Audrey Snyder
May the Stars Remember Your Name Kenneth Bailey/arr. Mary Cohen
OMAG Choir
Shine on Me Spiritual/arr. Rollo A. Dillworth
It Don’t Mean a Thing Duke Ellington & Irving Mills/arr. Roger Emerson & Robert Bellisario
Combined Choirs
Singing Behind Bars 