WatchFEATURED ARTISTS: LAURA BARON: Refugee, WILLY SCHWARZ: The Immigrant Orchestra, PATTY LARKIN: The Fool’s Song, ALISON MOORE: Liberty, HOSTED BY WARRREN SENDERS
ABOUT the ARTISTS and their WORKS
Refugee, by award-winning singer-songwriter Laura Baron, is an ethereal, soft jazz folksong, going straight to the heart. With plaintive lyrics like “It’s so long since we’ve been welcomed,” she takes us to that place of deep empathy. And ending with “We are the song of the human race,” she reminds us we all come from a family of immigrants.
The Immigrant Orchestra, by Willy Schwarz, is the spoken word story of how his parents fled here from Europe on the eve of World War II. Interspersed with the music from around the world that influenced him, Willy talks about how he came to create the Chicago Immigrant Orchestra – 23 musicians from dozens of countries, playing their native instruments in harmony. Beautiful music – but he also saw it as a model for a respectful, multicultural society. It’s an American tale, if we can just hold on to it.
The lyrics of The Fool’s Song, by singer-songwriter Patty Larkin, were actually adapted from a poem written in 1913 by the celebrated poet William Carlos Williams – but Larkin adds her own new verses, along with a haunting melody. The singer laments putting her bird in a cage – the bird of truth. But it cannot be contained, the bird flies free, and the cage is broken. Truth can’t be locked up forever – including truths about climate, the desperation of the refugee, or any other facts some would try to hide away.
Liberty, by Alison Moore, is a spoken word tale – a magical realism metaphor about the Statue of Liberty on a road trip across the country, down to the Southern border. Having lost her way, she’s unable to remember how to finish her line, “Give me your tired, your poor…” – until she’s reminded by the children she meets there. “Libertad,” one child says, teaching us we are a country of immigrants, striving for freedom.
Song credits coming soon…