Vassar Haiti Project

Somehow, a month has already passed since Les Petits Chanteurs visited our campus on their East Coast tour and graced us with their musical stylings. Reflecting below on music, community, and the event itself is Anna Brashear ’15. 

“Music is a universal language. Music, to this date, has been found to be present in every culture of the world, in fact! It is astounding then, to think of the multitude of ways in which music around the world has come to express itself, the traditions it has spawned, the instruments it has inspired, and the countless ways in which it has brought people together. That’s exactly what happened at Les Petit Chanteurs on September 20^th auspices of Vassar College’s student center—music flowed not only from the voices of the singers, but from each heart, sending its beautiful melodies far beyond the mere walls of the performance space. Rather, that melody of joy resonated and remained—remained in the hearts and memories that all who experienced that evening, remained as a tenuous thread that connects people across boundaries and borders, remained as a reminder to us all that song can contain lives, stories, and lasting beauty, and can communicate those things that words alone cannot.

A chanteur, 9.20.13

Les Petit Chanteurs was an event hosted by the Vassar Haiti Project in conjunction with the Haitian boys’ choir of the same name. The evening of music also featured a performance by the Vassar College Mixed and Women’s Choruses, which fostered a sense of musical community between the host institution and the amazing performers who traveled many miles to participate in the event. The evening opened with performances by the Vassar choirs and then moved on to the main event of the evening, Les Petit Chanteurs (LPC), whose music ranged from the heartbreakingly beautiful to the joyously loud and uplifting. By the end of the evening, audience members had been brought to their feet in dance and moved to laughter and maybe tears for some, as everyone clapped along to the beat of the music, the drums, the rhythms—it was almost as if we could press our ears to the strong and steady heartbeat of Haiti. With every pulsing heartbeat, we participated in an intimacy with this culture through their musical traditions. It was nothing short of cathartic and simply, beautiful.

Les Petits Chanteurs, 9.20.13

I serve as the Director of Grants for the Vassar Haiti Project but am also a member of the Vassar College Choir—therefore, this event held a special significance for me. Although I don’t speak a word of Haitian Creole and didn’t personally get to know the boys in LPC, sharing a space dedicated to music with the boys that evening made me feel a part of something bigger—a bigger mission to bring peoples of the globe together and to show each other that in our difference, we are all unique, beautiful, and worthy of a stage to present our songs to the world. I hope that in our performance that evening we not only said “Welcome” to the boys’ choir, but also “Thank you.” A great thanks for sharing a piece of themselves with us for our delight and wonderment.

The Vassar College Women’s Chorus 

The Vassar College Mixed Chorus 

As I sat at the concert, watching the boys filter into the audience to dance with people they had never met and who lived in another world, I just had the biggest, sappiest smile plastered across my face. Why? Well, it’s easy as a college student, when reading a thousand articles from this policy journal or that sociology study, to become disillusioned and jaded as I learn about disparity, fear, and hatred in the world between peoples of different backgrounds. But the reality is, that even in a world filled with tragedy, there are pockets of joy, pockets of brightness, where love and beauty and music bring people together against the forces that seek to keep us apart and keep us from understanding and appreciating one another in our uniqueness. The event “Les Petit Chanteurs” was just that—a “pocket of brightness” that evening, and I am so proud that the Vassar Haiti Project had the privilege of putting on such an incredible event. That evening, VHP under the contributed to the creation of a greater song, a song of the world’s diverse peoples, that connects us all in the most sonorous harmony.” — Anna