My friends, this is a different kind of election. The kind when nearly 1,000 folks congregate for one evening, to listen to live opera and classical music, and raise over $50,000 for Obama-Biden.
Let me tell you about David Kravitz and Charley Blandy. They are a rare kind of blogger - they are bloggers who are also opera singers. How many of you can say that? (I can't. You do not want to hear me sing Carmen. At least, my husband (also a musician) doesn't.) :)
Not only that, but they (along with coblogger Bob) have the biggest liberal blog in blue Massachusetts - Blue Mass Group. They covered the Democratic National Convention for our state (and did a bang up job) and many of the smaller state races would not be much covered except for them, and the bloggers in the network across the state, both who post diaries on BMG or who run their own community blogs.
This is the second fundraiser concert that David and Charley have held - the last, in 2004, for Kerry, raised $22,000. It was the frustration with that election that prompted them (like many of us) to hang up their sign out on the istreet and carve out a little niche on the internet.
So when this election season rolled around, they upped their goal and got to work. (It even got Boston Globe coverage.)
An incredible array of artists and musicians jumped forward - in fact, the program was packed - and a full orchestra even performed Beethoven's "Egmont" Overture as well as backed up the second half's singers with professional sound. And National Anthem nearly sold out their 1,000-seat venue. (The hardest part was getting them all through the will-call!)
At the end, after many rounds of applause for the hard work of these artists, the audience stood and sang, with the singers on stage and the full orchestra, our National Anthem. Charley had this to say about it:
The audience-participation National Anthem at the end was a moment that will long ring in my ears; and I think it was the first time when I actually understood it as something fresh, relevant, and current -- not a complacent affirmation of our goodness and rightness, or a historical relic, but an eternal challenge to all of us. It reminded me that the Star Spangled Banner is a song about persistence of hope, of survival, of courage. It says that the dream of freedom lives on even in the (literally) darkest hour, and even if only illumined by the flashes of chaos and conflict all around it. At a time when so much of what we considered to be permanent about our country -- our Constitution, the rule of law, democracy and voting, our fundamental rights as human beings, the land itself -- is in deep crisis, it is good to be reminded that we have inherited a country that was born in, and has survived, crisis.
Notice that the final line of the song is not a statement, but a question:
Oh say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?
It's a song about never, ever giving up, even in the darkest uncertainty.
I felt that spirit of courage so strongly last night, from the musicians and audience. And for that persistence, courage, and encouragement, I am very humbled and grateful to all of you.
We will prevail. Let us answer that question that ends our national song, and let the answer be, "Yes."
It cannot be understated: the unity and strength in that room made the hall ring. It was an emotional night - and I want to thank David and Charley for letting me be some small part in it (that had nothing whatsoever to do with singing).
I thought that people might want to hear a story of something positive, of a thousand small contributions coming together to become something colossal. That's grassroots power. That's Obama's campaign. That's how, in the end, we will win.
Thanks and have a great evening everyone!
PS and now, the National Anthem concert is second only in total ActBlue donations to Kos's Orange to Blue...a difficult feat to be sure, given the fierce competition from such august blogs as AMERICAblog and Eschaton!