Youth in Action: Dear Humanity Youth Art Festival & Concert Premiere

By Bekah Sandy

Music makes the world a better place. But can the same creative expression that enriches our planet also help save it?

Such is the question driving Dear Humanity for Youth Chorus and Orchestra, a student-led composition addressing climate change’s impact. Its premiere on April 21, 2023 is both the focal point and conclusion of the Seattle Symphony’s Dear Humanity Youth Art Festival, a multi-day event showcasing projects by local youth artists that address emergent environmental issues.

Combining musical craft and social commentary just makes sense, says the Symphony’s 2022/2023 season Artist in Residence, Angelique Poteat. The celebrated composer collaborated with 30 area teenagers to envision and orchestrate their melodic message. “Art is a reflection of our time, living and changing as our world changes,” she said. “Creating music inspired by [current] events … is a way to connect with people in a way that says that the music we share is intertwined with our lives and relevant to our human experiences.”

The experience most weighing on the minds of the teens participating in the 2020 Community Youth Chorus program was climate change. While nature and caring for the environment are themes the composer often explores in her own repertoire, it was the students who advocated for the topic’s starring role in their work. “We approached Dear Humanity from a completely blank slate,” Poteat said. “Early in the process, the Community Youth Choir was asked to reflect on issues that had a strong impact on their personal lives, touching on everything from social media and mental health to local and global issues. The unifying thread was climate change, which kept emerging and eventually created the narrative for the piece.”

Once Poteat and the students determined a theme, the Pacific Northwest composer tackled the nitty gritty of demonstrating how to put their vision onto the page. She paired educational lessons with interactive tasks to achieve such goals as creating an overarching theme, spinning melodies, writing text, arranging that text into narrative, aligning that narrative with the energy of the musical movements, and plotting a plan for orchestration and instrumentation. “I wanted this piece to really belong to the students. [It’s] a work created by young voices, aiming to resonate with other young voices.”

These lessons were supposed to culminate in a public concert of their work. While the students completed many of the lessons in person before the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, they were unable to perform that summer as originally planned. “Of course, the silver lining is that the piece will now fulfill an enhanced role of inspiring a whole week of youth arts and climate change outreach,” Poteat said.

Audiences of all ages are encouraged to reflect on the plea central to the work. “It begins from a place of calm unawareness, later gaining more exposure to corporate impact and environmental reactions, resulting in reflection, grief, guilt and finally inspiring a call to action,” Poteat explained. “I think that audiences will be captivated by the earnestness of the text, the whimsical musical themes throughout and the invitation to use the listening experience as a launching point to do one’s part to make the world a better place. These are my favorite aspects of the work.”

In addition to Dear Humanity’s world premiere, the climate-themed festival will feature a wide variety of area teenage artists’ work, everything from dance to spoken word to visual and digital art displays, which will be staged in various Benaroya Hall spaces between April 15 and 21. Artists were selected by a teen panel. “There is a lot of hope in these young people’s work for a future that they are ready to take ownership of and fight to preserve,” Poteat said.

And by providing a space for the next generation to communicate their concerns, the composer said she hopes artistic institutions can affect change. “When orchestras program this kind of music, they start to break down stereotypes of being solely museum curators of dated Western-European music, and instead, become advocates for resonating current voices while bringing current issues into focus.”

Dear Humanity Youth Art Festival Schedule:
Sunday, April 15, 3–5pm: Arts Corps Art 4 Life Showcase and Exhibition (Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center)

Sunday, April 16, 1–4pm: Youth Performances on Climate Change and Related Topics (Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall)

Tuesday, April 18, 4–7pm: Public Exhibition Day for Youth Art (Samuel & Althea Stroum Grand Lobby)

Friday, April 21, 7pm: Dear Humanity Concert (S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium)

The Dear Humanity Youth Arts Festival is generously sponsored by Susan M. Coughlin and John K. Lauber.

Delta Air Lines proudly supports the Seattle Symphony’s Community Partnerships for Youth and Education. Dear Humanity is presented as part of the Seattle Symphony’s New Music WORKS initiative, which is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Seattle Symphony’s Family, School & Community programs are supported by 4Culture, Marco Argenti, ArtsFund, D.A. Davidson, Delta Air Lines, J.P. Morgan Private Bank, the Klorfine Foundation, the Merriman-Ross Family, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, and individual contributions to the Seattle Symphony Annual Fund.