PROCESS
percussionist - Aaron Tuchardt
5.14.2022 | 7pm - Rose City Park United Methodist Church 5830 NE Alameda St, Portland, OR 97213 - Free Admission we ask that masks be worn for this performance |
Note from the Director
This concert idea came from a conversation with my wife (Nexus soprano and Executive Director Allison Cottrell) about how the workplaces people return to after the pandemic will not be the same because people will be gone. Some people passed away, from COVID or other causes, often without traditional funerals that offer structure during emotionally turbulent times. Some people have changed jobs, without any of the normal goodbyes or rituals we expect, leaving holes in relationships and communities. Our established means of processing these things were stolen by the virus.
It’s not just workplaces, of course. We are not the same people as we were before the pandemic. It’s been two years! Under normal, non-pandemic circumstances a ton of things change in two years.
For me alone: I changed careers, got a new job, got let go, got another new job, lost two grandparents (not to COVID), bought my first house, got engaged and married, sold my first house, and bought my second house. High highs and low lows.
In our country and our world, we’ve been through the largest social justice protests since the Civil Rights Movement, which continue to provoke tension, especially in our city. We’ve seen the confirmation of two supreme court justices, the most contentious presidential election of my lifetime, extreme civil polarization, and a wildly swinging economy. We’ve been in social isolation like nothing most of us have ever experienced, plus an accelerating climate crisis (fires in Australia, California, Colorado, and Oregon, tornados in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, plus widespread droughts and record temperatures), and most recently a major war in Ukraine.
How the hell do we deal with it all? How do we go back to “normal” when “going back” is impossible? The life that existed before the first pandemic lockdown will never return, because too much has changed.
There has been a lot of grief. Not only traditional grief for lost loved ones, but grief for a way of life, or a part of our personality that we abandoned in pursuit of who we are in a pandemic-addled society. We have all lost something, or someone, and our usual coping mechanisms have been upended. Our routines were forced to change, our social lives pushed online, our methods of communication relegated almost exclusively to digital media.
But this concert is not a requiem. The pandemic is not over, and life has trudged on as it does, leaving us to pick up whatever pieces we can and leave those we cannot as we’re forced to keep going. With this concert, I just hope to share, collectively, what we’ve all been going through; to look at it plainly and recognize it together, because empathy can be a boon to processing, and there is a difference between knowing that other people are feeling the same, and feeling that other people are feeling the same. Concerts can do that.
Thank you for being here, and being a part of this with us. I hope this music speaks to something you need to acknowledge, and helps you, in some way, process.
Lennie Cottrell
Artistic Director, Nexus Vocal Ensemble
It’s not just workplaces, of course. We are not the same people as we were before the pandemic. It’s been two years! Under normal, non-pandemic circumstances a ton of things change in two years.
For me alone: I changed careers, got a new job, got let go, got another new job, lost two grandparents (not to COVID), bought my first house, got engaged and married, sold my first house, and bought my second house. High highs and low lows.
In our country and our world, we’ve been through the largest social justice protests since the Civil Rights Movement, which continue to provoke tension, especially in our city. We’ve seen the confirmation of two supreme court justices, the most contentious presidential election of my lifetime, extreme civil polarization, and a wildly swinging economy. We’ve been in social isolation like nothing most of us have ever experienced, plus an accelerating climate crisis (fires in Australia, California, Colorado, and Oregon, tornados in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, plus widespread droughts and record temperatures), and most recently a major war in Ukraine.
How the hell do we deal with it all? How do we go back to “normal” when “going back” is impossible? The life that existed before the first pandemic lockdown will never return, because too much has changed.
There has been a lot of grief. Not only traditional grief for lost loved ones, but grief for a way of life, or a part of our personality that we abandoned in pursuit of who we are in a pandemic-addled society. We have all lost something, or someone, and our usual coping mechanisms have been upended. Our routines were forced to change, our social lives pushed online, our methods of communication relegated almost exclusively to digital media.
But this concert is not a requiem. The pandemic is not over, and life has trudged on as it does, leaving us to pick up whatever pieces we can and leave those we cannot as we’re forced to keep going. With this concert, I just hope to share, collectively, what we’ve all been going through; to look at it plainly and recognize it together, because empathy can be a boon to processing, and there is a difference between knowing that other people are feeling the same, and feeling that other people are feeling the same. Concerts can do that.
Thank you for being here, and being a part of this with us. I hope this music speaks to something you need to acknowledge, and helps you, in some way, process.
Lennie Cottrell
Artistic Director, Nexus Vocal Ensemble