Since 1985, the Syracuse Community Choir has been delivering messages of peace and social justice through the power of song. They utilize the voices of the community—young and old with different races, backgrounds and faiths—and combine them to form a stronger, louder voice to promote their positive messages.
On Saturday, Dec. 15, 7 p.m., the choir will perform their Winter Solstice Concert at Plymouth Congregational Church, 232 E. Onondaga St. Tickets are $12 to $25 on a sliding scale. Call 428-8151 for information.
In addition to a song-packed program, the evening will also recognize two local heroes. Ann Tiffany and Ed Kinane will be given the People’s Peace Prize, for the work they’ve done over the years.
“We have a list of people in the
community who we want to honor,” says choir director Karen Mihalyi. “Ann
and Ed have been on the list and it just seemed like this was the year.
They are living lives of integrity on every level, from the personal to
the political.”
Tiffany and Kinane have both gone to prison for their beliefs and have been arrested on several occasions throughout their travels to Iraq, Iran, Columbia, Nicaragua, Haiti and more. Choir member Richard Gardner went to Nicaragua with Tiffany in 1984 and has known Kinane through the Syracuse Peace Council for years. Gardner remembers crossing paths with Kinane when he went to El Salvador and Guatemala for peace work in the late 1980s.
“He {Kinane} was involved with a group called Peace Brigades International,” Gardner explains. “He was leaving Guatemala when I got there. The idea was that we would provide unarmed body guards to people trying to do human rights work or maybe union organizing. It was basically open to whoever asked us. The idea was that just because we were foreigners and connected to a network and because the government of Guatemala was concerned about their human rights image, they would think twice about ‘disappearing’ somebody; that was the term. He definitely put himself on the line and Ann has, too.”
Gardner has been involved with the choir for all 27 years, and active in peace work for even longer. He sees the importance of the group in its ability to educate people about many issues and to inspire them to become active in promoting messages of peace and justice. He also notes the diversity of the choir as a major attraction.
“Karen tries to make it open to everybody,” he says. “There are a lot of people who have various kinds of abilities that normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to participate in something like this. We make efforts to not just welcome them, but to address things that get in the way, like transportation, stairs, brailing music, child care. So what you see is kind of a model of how we would like the world to be: an inclusive place.”
The choir, which currently numbers 80 singers, performs annual winter and summer concerts, with additional performances taking place throughout the year. Much of their programming comes from the People’s Music Network (PMN), an organization started by Pete Seeger. The choir performed with Seeger at the Landmark Theatre when he visited in 1994 and 2003.
The theme for this year’s winter concert is “Peace Becomes You,” based on the Holly Near tune. “When I heard the song, it seemed perfect for them {Tiffany and Kanine},” Mihalyi says. “Although it is a great love song, it also speaks to how beautiful, amazing and attractive people are who work for peace and justice: who are active, who show up, who have included the whole world in their lives, their arms. It speaks to the idea of love and action. Love in all its forms and action, doing, making a difference in the world. Love and action will be the underlying theme.”
For those who want to become active with the choir, no auditions are needed. Mihalyi has future members sing a few measures of a piece to know where to place them vocally, but all are welcome in the group.
This touches on a quality of the choir Gardner finds
critical, “After things like 9/11, people got scapegoated, this ‘us vs.
them’ mentality,” he says. “And the choir is really a model that I think
strives really hard to be the opposite of that: to be inclusive and to
understand the difference between people.”
