The Ripple Effect

In today’s fragmented world, it is often difficult for students to perceive the connections between the art they "consume" (music, film, books, TV, etc.) and the real life issues they face. For professional artists, even, this is not always easy; many of them create in isolation, constructing walls where "building community" would be more appropriate.

At the Nashua Symphony Orchestra & Chorus (NSO&C), we’re addressing the need for human connection in the world of the arts, by bringing people across disciplines together for a uniquely engaging, long term project that we hope will energize and inspire all the participants to create work they’re proud of, that expresses some essential element of their experience, and that they’re eager to share with the larger public.

"The Ripple Effect" is, in its current form, designed to be a long-term collaboration between Nashua’s high school student writers, singers, and artists, the NSO&C, experienced composers (this year it’s Malcolm Hawkins), and former NH Poet-Laureate Marie Harris.


Cycle 4 student poets with former NH Poet Laureate Marie Harris


Cycle 4 Composer Malcolm Hawkins works with singers from NHS North

The project’s goal is to highlight the interconnectivity between these various art forms, and to generate an awareness of the unique pleasures of artistic collaboration and expression. None of the art is created in a vacuum; instead, students and professionals are asked to respond to each other through their art. Each cycle represents a journey from music to poetry to visual art and finally back to music, with new work responding to old through the filter of contemporary experience:

1. This year, after learning that Director of Choral Activities wanted to program John Rutter’s medley of American spirituals called Feel the Spirit, we thought it would be worthwhile for students to explore the themes that run through the music and lyrics of spirituals and create poems that echo and expand upon them.

2. Once this theme was identified, our poet, Marie Harris, set up workshops with students at the high school, encouraging them to write poems that reflect their experience within the context of environmental change. They took a field trip to the Milford Black Heritage Trail to deepen their understanding of the context in which these works of art were created.

3. Students engaged in the high school’s visual arts program were later engaged in choosing poems to respond to, creating visual art that was displayed alongside the poems (with several pieces being reproduced in a color program, in our newsletter and our website) at the eventual concert. To see art from TRE Cycle 4, click here.

4. Finally, our composer selected from the poems submitted by the students to create new work for the chorus, incorporating the texts in some aural way (spoken word, solo voice, choir, or any combination). Over the course of the fall semester, Malcolm worked with the concert choir from NHS North, including them in the creative process and incorporating their feedback.

5. The resulting brand new musical work - which responded to this year’s theme through the lens of a broad range of contemporary experience - was performed by the NHS choir and the Nashua Symphony Chorus on a NSA subscription concert (March 20, 2010), thus bringing the creative process full circle.