A SONG ABOUT US
Boston's Lullaby Project

(L to R) Sarah Shifferd, Patricia Barkas, Patricia Schmieg, and Kearney Kirby performing at Casa Myrna Vazquez's Mother's Day Celebration.

(Sounding Board, April 2003) On May 13, 2002, composer-keyboardist Kearney Kirby, poet Patricia Schmieg, vocalist Patricia Barkas, and cellist Sarah Shifferd performed a Mother's Day concert of original lullabies at Boston's Casa Myrna Vazquez, Inc., a community-based, multicultural organization dedicated to the eradication of violence against women and children.

Performed for 50 of the organization's women and children, the program included "A Song About Us," "Song from My Country," "Bee and Eagle," and "Our Song," all written by a group of nine women from Cape Verde, China, Ethiopia, Portugal, Turkey, and the United States. The songs incorporated lyrics in English and the languages of the women who wrote them. A fifth song by Kirby and Schmieg , "Something to Dream By," rounded out the program.

The concert capped off the Lullaby Project, the Boston Chapter's nine-month Community Partners project with the Transitional Living Program at Casa Myrna Vazquez. The project placed Kirby and Schmieg in residence with the program to help the culturally diverse group of women - all mothers and survivors of domestic violence - create songs of love and devotion for their children.

Given the often frightening situations from which the participants came, it was important to create a safe space for the women to express themselves. "What if you never felt safe in your life?" Schmieg says, reflecting on the residency.

To create the right environment, Schmieg wrote a meditation for everyone who "grew up with war in their families, on their streets, in their countries, or in their world." The meditation went, "You change the air around you. You create a place of peace and safety as naturally as you breathe."

"After the first words, the women melted into the sofas," Schmieg recalls. As the women grew more comfortable, they began to share stories and talk about their common experiences - getting looks at homeless shelters, giving birth, and loving their children.

"I am not a therapist and all my previous collaborations have been with other professional musicians," Kirby adds, "but music was my first therapist. When I first heard about the Lullaby Project, I thought of my own life. Being able to write and play got me through my own abysmal family situation."

Despite the common issues that united them, there was one thing the women didn't share - a common cultural background. Rather than let it stand between them, the group used its diversity to its advantage. "For the first few sessions we just talked about the music we loved and why we loved it," Kirby recalls. "Once we got the ball rolling, the women started mentioning or bringing music from China, Ethiopia, Portugal, and Turkey. The women were genuinely interested in each other's music and requested translations of the lyrics on the fly."

Speaking In Songs

As the women shared songs, a number of the traditional melodies became the basis for their lullabies. As there were no instruments at Casa Myrna Vazquez, Kirby would go home and write music based on the melodies, and then bring recordings of the music to the group's meetings. After going through an opening meditation, the women would listen to the music and write lyrics to accompany it.

"One woman sang 'Eh Neni' in Turkish," Schmieg said. "That melody became 'A Song about Us.' Another hummed [a] Portuguese song, which became 'Song of my Country.' Kearney discovered Ethiopian singer Gigi Shibabaw through an Internet search, and used the syncopation from Shibabaw's 'Bale Washintu' in 'Our Song,' the anthem that ended the set."

One of the women handed Schmieg a piece of paper with a title written on it. Schmieg scoured Boston's Chinatown until she found a tape of the song, which had been composed for erhu, a two-string Chinese instrument. When the woman heard the tape, she immediately started writing the lyrics for "Bee and Eagle."

Nine Months

After the concert: (l to r) cellist Sarah Shifferd, composer Kearney Kirby, vocalist Patricia Barkas, Poet Patricia Schmieg, Casa Myrna Vazquez Clinical Children's Service Coordinator Jennifer Wittlin, Boston Chapter Director Beth Denisch, and Casa Myrna Vazquez Director of Clinical and Community Services Monica Roizner.

Over nine months, the women strengthened their voices and rose to the challenge of finding words and music to tell their stories. From the chromatic, melodic twists of Turkish music to the African polyrhythms, listening to the concert was like soaring around the globe.

The women also inspired the artists-in-residence.

"The Lullaby Project called us to teach tenderness by encouraging women to write songs for their children," Schmieg says, "but these mothers were the high teachers of tenderness."

"Musically, the Lullaby Project was an amazing experience for me," Kirby adds. "I was introduced to music I had never heard before, and was enriched and changed by it. I was challenged to try new things and deepened by the experience."

Toward the end, the artists asked the participants what they had gotten out of the project. One woman's son had been taken from her and sent to live with her husband's family. He was told that she didn't love him, and when he was finally returned to her, he was hurt and angry.

"Before [the Lullaby Project] it was very hard," the woman told Kirby and Schmieg. "You gave us music and asked us to write. I read the lullaby to my son. Told him these were the feelings I had. He said, 'Mom, I like that music.'

"We're getting closer now. He trusts me."

The Lullaby Project was funded by the Arts Fund of The Boston Foundation.