We are making a ‘lockdown’ video of ‘Make our Garden Grow’ the finale of Leonard Bernstein’s operetta Candide to celebrate the talents and diversity across Cambridge and share this with the wider local community
Exchanging stories is fundamental to social inclusion and community building. It can be a healing process for individuals, bridge gaps and negotiate tensions, uniting people across faiths, cultures, languages and generations. Our human capacity to make sense of the world through narrative – distinguishing homo narrans from other species – is nothing less than a powerful technology for successful adaptation to new circumstances in times of uncertainty. Coming together to share stories provides the impetus for reimagining collectively a better, shared future. The current pandemic has reminded us in so many ways of the importance of community to our wellbeing even while social distancing and shielding has made social exchange all the more challenging. The last twelve weeks have also revealed many deep-seated social inequalities. There has never been a more important time for us to come together as a community and to listen to each other so that we can, united, work towards a better society for all.
Using art and music as a common language we propose a framework through which people across Cambridge can share something of their own story and come together in song.
The song will be based around Bernstein’s setting of Voltaire’s famous line: ‘We must make our garden grow’. During the lockdown, many of us have found solace in gardening, for some this has been a large-scale effort; for others, tending a window box. Research upholds the therapeutic value of gardening in times of uncertainty and crisis (in WW1 flower gardens were planted in the trenches); it shows how forming an attentive relationship with nature helps us fully inhabit the place we are in, restore a sense of being and belonging, enabling those who feel disconnected with the world to reconnect with it. ‘We must make our garden grow’ is not just a song about digging, planting and enjoying the harvest; it is a song about building a community through reciprocity; a community that is shaped by people born in different places, with divergent outlooks but who all learn to benefit from the contributions of others and enjoy each other’s company and their stories.
In coming together to play, sing, illustrate or otherwise animate a socially-distanced recording of Bernstein’s inspirational finale we want to draw together some of the stories of community – and its many gardeners – and generate more such stories through a song of celebration!
If you would like to take part in our video or in some other way, then there are some further instructions and resources on the ‘Resources Page‘.
The deadline for submissions is Friday 17th July 2020