Sometimes I am asked, as the director of an all-women’s chorus in a relatively remote, semi-rural section of New England, USA, what in the world we think we are doing to sing songs from Africa, Japan, Israel, Palestine, Cuba, etc. Our group consists of mostly Caucasian, mostly middle-class American women, who are relatively well-educated and perhaps politically left-leaning, but can we hope to honor such varied and vastly different cultures and give a remotely accurate representation of their music?

The answer, of course, is yes and no. We cannot  re-create the passion and fire of a Cuban band, or a West African wedding chorus, or even a Balkan women’s cooperative. We don’t have the internal knowledge and nature/nurture exposure to allow us to immerse ourselves in each and every song-culture we wish to explore. Furthermore, we are mostly New Englanders, for heavens’ sake, taught from utero to be polite, quiet, sedate, reserved, and even aloof! How do we dare?

Thank goodness for the universal language of music! Through such songs as the Cuban El Manisero, the Japanese Hotaru Koi, the West African Dimpho Tsarona, and others of their ilk, we can get inside the ears of the people who gave us their music. Thanks to the modern gifts of Youtube and legal mp3 sharing, we can discover several versions of a song and see and hear the rhythms and passions within the music. And then, yes, we can dare to sway our hips, wave our hands, and especially lift our voices to express our understanding of their world through their music. We don’t try to pretend to BE “them”- we are “us”- including us, them, you, me, all of us, sharing our music and perhaps finding common ground and unity and dare I say it? Peace on earth…

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