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An Essay about Songs The word SONG is instantly recognizable throughout the world, conjuring up a wide range of meanings in almost every culture on the globe as it has done through thousands of years. It lends its name to a broad range of styles of vocal utterance from the simplest children´s play songs and maternal lullabies to folk and traditional melodies; from the most complicated, subtle classical compositions to the ubiquitous popular and jazz styles of the 21 st century. Songs also have the capacity to touch the deepest parts of our heart and soul and to evoke the most profound feelings, which we are often unable to express in mere words. Like other forms of the artistic impulse, songs can also be powerful tools to bring people together and in fact have been used by many to achieve collective goals of all kinds, not even limited to musical goals, and not always for the most constructive purposes of human endeavor. But crossing now into the third millennium, it is a curious fact that, in spite of the vast plethora of popular songs, the inundation of almost the entire world with CDs and videos of literally every pop singer in almost any language, and the non-stop radio, MTV and Online transmission of pop or folk song renditions, nevertheless the classical music listener must go to great lengths, must sometimes encounter considerable expense, and is often forced to endure long expanses of radio and TV time without access to classical song performances of any kind, let alone those of high quality. Some will cite the fact that songs by definition entail a poetic or prose text, which, even in the listener´s native language, may require some sympathy towards literary considerations, not to mention the double barrier presented by texts in foreign languages. Others might remind us that the very human-ness of voices per se, has the potential to further limit or even to alienate an audience, which has, on occasion, a tendency to fracture itself over preferences or distastes for certain types of voices. Radio producers often report that surveys of their listeners show an instant reduction in the number of listeners when vocal music appears on the air. However, in this age of mind-numbing technology, when, with a click of a mouse we can assemble a ´virtual auditorium` full to capacity with specialized aficionados of the most obscure products or services, it would seem that the auspicious moment has finally arrived when those who have hungered and thirsted after the ´balm` of song-filled evenings may at last be rewarded and brought together with kindred spirits, even those isolated in the far corners of the world. At the beginning of this millennium, it seems most appropriate, even essential, to explore this most simple of the world`s art forms, to see what it is that songs can still tell us about our human condition, to see if songs still have the power to move us, to delight us, to disturb us, to console us, and to allow us to share our humanity. Through our Songs Across the Americas Festivals, Songs Unlimited began with special emphasis on Latin American and North American song. We bring together a selection of composers who have written songs, of performers who excel in presenting them, and of scholars, listeners and authors who have given thought to and have written or verbalized about the subject of song. [See our Website section on Songs Across the Americas Festival - 2003 Bolivia, for details about those Festival.] Our objective is not to exclude songs written for theatrical or religious purposes (i.e. arias), nor those that might originate from anonymous or traditional sources. But we take a special interest in classical or lyric song, which, in spite of its infinite diversity and creative vitality, or perhaps precisely because of its most frequent and common simple format of´ one singer and one pianist`, is often overlooked or at least taken less seriously than its sister genres of opera, musical theater and popular song. In recent years there have been, in the United States, in Europe and other localities, a number of Festivals of Song. Some have remained active and successful showing that there is a continued interest in this genre among audiences, at least in the United States, especially in metropolitan areas where sympathetic audiences exist in sufficient number. Our Songs Across the Americas Festival - 2003 Bolivia has proven itself unique among these enterprises, by the special mixture of its components, by our unique way of scheduling performing artists and their repertoire, and above all, by the overall focus of that Festival, in this case - Songs of Five Andean Countries and the United States. We also provide an approach which we hope will add to, support and enhance those of other such festivals, but at the same time we are helping in our own way to build an audience for this music and to support those who create and reproduce it. We hope eventually to link hands with other enterprises engaged in the promotion of SONG, such as Festivals, Competitions and regular Concert Series.
"It was a life-changing experience for me."
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