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Singing on Solid Ground: Music Education in Post-Earthquake Haiti

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2022

LAUREN ELDRIDGE STEWART
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Abstract

The sonic aftershocks of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti continue to reverberate throughout the cultural landscape, particularly within the relatively small but long-standing mizik klasik community. In this article, I analyse the sometimes divergent performances of a composition that commemorates that tragedy. Haitian-American composer Sydney Guillaume wrote ‘N'ap Debat’ (‘We're Hangin’ On’) from Los Angeles shortly after the earthquake. One performance of this work takes place far from the site of ruin, voiced by distant observers. The other performance happens in Haiti, sung by its survivors. Both performances transform rubble into ruin.

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Forum
Information
Twentieth-Century Music , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 2022 , pp. 194 - 200
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Additional information about the programming of l'Ecole de Musique Sainte Trinité can be found via the Building Leaders Using Music Education website at blumehaiti.org/emst (accessed 19 November 2021).

2 Further writing on this subject is forthcoming in my in-progress monograph. Also see my conference presentation, ‘Whose Mizik Klasik? Classical Music and the Boundaries of Genre in Haiti’, delivered at the 66th Society for Ethnomusicology annual conference, virtual, 28–31 October 2021.

3 More information about the MSVMA is available on their website: www.msvma.org (accessed 19 November 2021).

4 I have adapted Howard Becker's description of ‘art worlds’ to describe the groundswell of interest in building global repertoires within choral communities. See S. Becker, Howard, Art Worlds, 25th Anniversary Edition (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

5 While his YouTube account mostly features performance videos, Guillaume's Instagram account has detailed records of his coaching collaborations with various ensembles around the world.

6 For additional information on this ensemble, and the manner in which they have come to represent Haiti internationally, see the following press release by the Embassy of Haiti: www.haiti.org/les-petits-chanteurs-and-the-chamber-ensemble-of-holy-trinity-music-school-port-au-prince-haiti/ (accessed 19 November 2021). EMST has other ensembles, such as l'Orchestre Philarmonique de Sainte-Trinité, a string ensemble, and a guitar group, but Les Petits Chanteurs are likely favoured for international travel because they are singers, in additional to their skill. They are capable of traveling in small units without a lot of musical equipment.

7 For more on the discourse on Haitian exceptionalism, see Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1995)Google Scholar; and Ulysse, Gina Athena, Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post-Quake Chronicle (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2015)Google Scholar.

8 See Baker, Geoffrey, El Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela's Youth (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014)Google Scholar; and Yang, Mina, Planet Beethoven: Classical Music at the Turn of the Millenium (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2014)Google Scholar.

9 For example, a newsletter from February 2021 enumerated difficulties including COVID-19, the presidential assassination, and ongoing kidnappings. The school director, however, was careful to introduce these challenges in the context of the many challenges countries around the world are facing. He goes on to write that ‘these three things have created an atmosphere of fear and for the past two weeks schools stopped again … We have worked hard since January 4 … but for the past few weeks, schools have been stopped. We will not stop: Our plan is 1) to dedicate our Easter Concert to our Maestro Julio Racine in April 11, 2021, 2) to have regular individual and group lessons when possible, 3) to continue the Ecole Ste Trinité class lessons when schools are in session, 4) to continue to use and develop the “Zoom” home lessons and 5) to continue Recitals for the parents, again – when possible.’

10 The phrase ‘trauma porn’ has etymological and ideological roots in the ‘torture porn’ and ‘war porn’ of the early 2000s, but has most recently entered the lexicon of Black Lives Matter discussants concerned with rapidly proliferating images of black death.

11 Consider the possible ramifications of a news media story with a provocative header image being posted and shared throughout social mediascapes – as has happened with the 2010 and 2021 earthquakes.

12 See Apel, Dora, Beautiful, Terrible Ruins: Detroit and the Anxiety of Decline (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 See Trouillot, Silencing the Past; and Ulysse, Why Haiti Needs New Narratives.

14 Sydney Guillaume website: https://sydneyguillaume.com/compositions/nap-debat-text.pdf.

15 The MSVMA's performance of the work is available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc6naehV838 (accessed 19 November 2021).