Grounding Words of Late

To waking up and making music during both trump presidencies

It’s scary to jump in with all ten toes and admit that the system won’t protect us, especially now. Mariame Kaba says, “Abolition looks like you and me,” and I believe that for many americans, this fact is scarier than the idea of another trump administration.

I think about the anger we direct at politicians—"Listen to us," "Apologize," "Resign." No matter how genuine, these are pursuits to confirm what we already know: they’re listening to their wallets, not us. In 2021’s We Do This ‘Til We Free Us Kaba again writes, “The system will never indict itself” (pg. 114).

In 2000, I remember a mock-election in my first grade class. I voted for Bush. I liked the red-colored box around his portrait better than Gore’s blue frame. (Can I get an amen, amerika? Praxis!) My first conscious presidential election was Obama’s, and the harms that this country quietly maintains under a blue president were overshadowed by the unprecedented racial breakthrough of that moment. For my generation, Biden was perhaps the first chance to confirm what Gen X’ers have known since Clinton’s response to Reagan and Bush: this country has one party with two personas.

Whenever trump takes center stage, he has this knack of exposing the what’s already happening in america for a lot of people. Under biden, we sent $12.5 billion to israel in just over a year to carry out a genocide, and plans for Cop Cities were rolled out all across the country. It certainly wasn’t Camelot… or even quiet. Yet, under the accountability-avoiding, hand-wringing guise of a blue president, outrage takes on an entirely different flavor, accompanied by a heaping side of silence.

Since the inauguration, it can feel like half the people who’ve been in the swimming pool with us for hours are suddenly screaming that they’re terrified of water. Our country’s foundations have always been here, and this comforts me more than it scares me—we’ve been in the muck of this struggle our entire lives, whether we were aware of it or not. Our earliest, naive understandings of america can be the richest indictments––they are a paper trail of the billions of dollars spent to keep us pacified, and are frantically itching for our reexamination.

Some folks take to twitter when they see newcomers to struggle, claiming “None of this is new!” Shaming those who are late to the party is low-hanging fruit––learning about every act of violence in this country’s history could take generations. We need everyone we can get, when they genuinely get here.

Original standpoints and language take good time to form. During the first trump administration, I made the most music with VOICES 21C. In 2017, we held numerous performances and workshops throughout Palestine. It took me years to find language for what I saw. In 2023, watching the general public try to understand it all on the fly was painful, but without the chance to witness it firsthand, I might have been right there with them. We should keep our personal grievances around the public’s growing pains to ourselves; if that’s our focus, then our focus isn’t on getting free.

2023’s enlivened attention toward the occupation was a gift, not something to be ashamed of. The future promises no shortage of radicalizing moments that will wake us all up, again and again. If we stay as constructive as possible in these moments, that’s a winning move.

Still, it can be valuable to reflect on why the change in administration has made people seem more awake and aware. For many people, it may simply come down to identifying with everything that trump is not. Whatever the reason, we can now ask ourselves what we once accepted, and how we're uniquely positioned to fight back.

And, just maybe, could we ask ourselves: “What of this panic and upset is driven by fear, and what of it is driven by love?”

***

How do we let love drive, regardless of what feels easy, and who is president?

In 2018, on stage in Mexico City, VOICES 21C and Voce in Tempore sang, “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (John 4:18), in seven different languages. The US and Mexican choral ensembles performed love for the stranger, both near and far, in stark contrast to the administration’s incessant messages of fear, othering, and deportation.

In 2024, Palestine Action took unprecedented action against weapons manufacturers complicit in the genocide in Gaza and Lebanon. They repeatedly vandalized weapons factories, risking imprisonment and costing companies millions for supplying arms used in genocide. Watch them do it, and I argue they repeatedly model acting out of love.

This gap––between a musical rejection of an oppressor's words, and actions that break the law to keep people alive––is what I am constantly trying to discern. Here, everywhere, forever.

***

”The most important work you will do at this time will be unpaid,” Dean Spade shared at last weekend’s book talk. “People are going to have to break a lot of rules and laws to survive this period.”

Both VOICES 21C and Pal Action had to miss the mark to one day hit it. We do, too. In We Do This ‘Til We Free Us, Kaba says, “Organizing is mostly about defeats.” When newcomers miss the mark, there may be noise, but those still in the thick of it will understand.

For a dose of hope and inspiration, the New York Civil Liberties Union released their 2025 Civil Rights Agenda, and it is sweeping. When I read it, my mind starts reeling with what to do right now, inside and outside the system. What abundance looks like in this moment sharpens in my mind.

Our president will not be shutting up anytime soon. Rather than scream both internally and externally with him, as he wants, we can struggle together. If you’re not going anywhere, then neither am I.

Musical Happenings

-Premiere: Self-portrait as a hackberry tree

The phenomenally-named Sydeboob Duo commissioned and premiered my latest piece for Soprano, Bass Flute, and live electronics last month. They sound phenomenal on it, and I am so thankful they love it. The poem is from the decidedly abolitionist, Black, and queer af poetry collection Freedom House (2023) by KB Brookins. You can read my program note and KB’s text here, and I hope to have the score on my website next month:

Small Interventions

-Fundraising for Gaza
Please join me in supporting Khaled, a disabled Palestinian who is navigating life in Gaza after his family was able to evacuate to Egypt.

-Music Teachers - Black History Month
I have been building the K-12 Music Keyword Equity Database for the past two years. You can search musical concepts planned for an upcoming lesson, and find listening examples by BIPOC composers. The Composition Technique category is my favorite, as you can imagine. It’s great for self-discovery; let your students run like the wind with it!

This Month’s Music Tarot 🃏

Recent earworms, and what it all means

-Concerto 5 in D Major | F. Seitz

A 2nd grade violin student of mine is performing this concerto on Saturday, and he’s absolutely rocking it. His mom has been incredibly supportive in his preparation.

This was one of the last Suzuki pieces I learned in 2008, while studying with Joseph Ceo in Wood River Junction, Rhode Island. Back then, my high school peers thought playing the violin and singing in the town's symphonic choir was "gay." (Well girl, now I’m nonbinary trans, too!) This, of course, was before Hillary Duff changed the world.

I had no help practicing violin at home. Dr. Ceo was throwing me up into third position again and again for the sake of practice. I was stressed, and the camel’s back broke. I took a break from violin and the choir, and switched to guitar and piano for “community” amongst my peers. (Dear reader...)

This high school detour taught me about the shape of music from instrument to instrument. Without it, I honestly don’t know where I’d be as a music teacher. (I took violin back up five years later, as a secondary instrument in college.) This weekend, I’ll be accompanying my student on the Seitz concerto. 2008 me never imagined this vantage point, and it makes me so teary and proud for the both of us.

Recent Consumptions

-A Grand Affair - written by danilo machado, Rodrigo Moreira and Serubiri Moses. It effortlessly and tactfully reflects the absurdity of the american immigration system. Free to view until March 2nd, so run, do not walk!

Hey, let’s walk - Today’s Minor 9th

My 2024 membership at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, paired with Robin Wall Kimmerer’s narration of Braiding Sweetgrass and my volunteering with Prospect Park Alliance, fundamentally shaped me forever. Returning to the Native Flora Garden after months felt like reconnecting with a dear friend and mentor.

I look at this photo, admiring the twiggy yet determined sassafras tree down the path, the towering sweet gum trees, and the sugar maples quietly moving sap through their trunks this season.

I can hear the opening of Britten’s Spring Symphony. The loppy timpani and harp barely thawing out around B2, F3, and E2 (yes, today’s minor 9th). An icy vibraphone chord stirs, and the weary choir takes the same sonority into their bodies, as if the frosted landscape could talk.

The words of George Chapman (16th century) elongated so stirringly by the altos––inward lines that give me such gender envy: “Shine out fair sun, with all your heat.”

I’ll be monitoring specific plants in the native flora garden this month, waiting for them to bloom. They’ll tell me when to expect the same plants elsewhere in Brooklyn, planted by the 2024 Guerrilla Gardening brigade I organized. We planted these native species where invasive plants dominate. More on that, as the seeds sprout.

(If you’re in Brooklyn and want to get involved, join the Signal chat and let me know, so I can accept the invite <3)

Lighting a Candle 🕯️ 

On a snowy Sunday evening in Brooklyn, at Dean Spade’s sold-out book talk, he asked the masked crowd, “Who do we want to be in these times?”

It is a blessing that we get to decide.

🕯️ Hind Rajab, six years old, murdered a year ago by israeli armed forces, January 29, 2024