Four dead at Cook’s Corner. Four dead in Beverly Crest, Los Angeles. Seven dead at Half Moon Bay. Twelve dead in Monterey Park.
And that was just last year.
If anything could raise the dead, it would be this: The agonizing, excruciating beauty of 50 enormous voices locked in dense, impenetrable harmony, demanding to know “Why? Why? Why?”
The dead are gone — kids killed in their classrooms, women murdered by their lovers, men dying by suicide with their own guns — but the Orange County Women’s Chorus will not forget them. “Arms,” the second concert of its 26th season, takes center stage Saturday and Sunday and is not just a modern requiem to the 40,000-plus Americans killed by gun violence every year, but a hopeful call to action for those who remain.
“This is one of the most interesting programs we’ve done,” said Artistic Director Eliza Rubenstein. “It’s entertaining and unsettling and everything in between. We’re singing ourselves to action.”
Fact: In an average year, 3,253 people die and 7,293 are wounded by guns in California, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Rubenstein has been thinking about doing a concert like this for years. It started to feel like not doing it was turning a blind eye to madness. “There’s so much music about gun violence now,” she said. “There was a lot to choose from, which is a sad commentary.”
‘Mom…mom….’
Isabel Van Ness called her mother Deedra in a frantic whisper during the Santa Fe High School shooting in Texas on May 18, 2018.
“Mom, they are shooting up the school,” the chorus sings, using the girl’s exact words. “I’m hiding…. I’m hiding in a closet…. I love you Mom…. Mom…. Mom….” The piece, Carlos Cordero’s “Normal,” makes one forget to breathe.
Orange County Women’s Chorus will be performing “Arms” this weekend. Incredibly powerful. pic.twitter.com/m1iPIunYQg
— teri sforza (@TeriSforza) March 21, 2024
Janelle…
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