The Dream Unfinished

I wanted to take a moment to plug the upcoming NYC classical concert this July called The Dream Unfinished. This is going to have a terrific program of performers in a new theater space near Union Square.

Over the years I hear plenty of lefty-type artists decry the dysfunctional American judicial system but it is rare that you see artists do something about it. This is a fundraiser that intends to bring the police and their community together again. This is an orchestral concert benefiting civil rights and N.Y.P.D. affiliated community organizations. The people involved are all shining their creative light on the story of Eric Garner and others like him. This is an issue that cannot be solved; it requires constant vigilance.

If you can spread the word about the fundraising: Thank you! And if you’re in New York City I urge you to get involved or simply plan to attend this beautiful concert in July. They’re also crowd-funding the concert. Share that link liberally.

Plain-Chant for America

For the dream unfinished Out of which we came, We stand together, While a hemisphere darkens And the nations flame.

Our earth has been hallowed With death for freedom; Our walls have been hallowed With freedom’s thought.

Concord, Valley Forge, Harpers Ferry Light up with their flares Our sky of doubt.

We fear tyranny as our hidden enemy: The blackshirt cruelty, the goose-step mind.

No dark signs close the doors of our speaking. No bayonets bar the door to our prayers. No gun butts shadow our children’s eyes.

If we have failed—lynchings in Georgia, Justice in Massachusetts undone, The bloody fields of South Chicago— Still a voice from the bruised and the battered Speaks out in the light of a free sun,

Saying, “Tell them again, say it, America; Say it again till it splits their ears: Freedom is salt in our blood and its bone shape; If freedom fails, we’ll fight for more freedom— This is the land, and these are the years! When freedom’s a whisper above their ashes An obsolete word cut on their graves, When the mind has yielded its last resistance, And the last free flag is under the waves—

“Let them remember that here on the western Horizon a star, once acclaimed, has not set; And the strength of a hope, and the shape of a vision Died for and sung for and fought for, And worked for, Is living yet.”

–Katherine Garrison Chapin Biddle

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