Blind to the Illness (2018)

Commissioned by Brooklyn Youth Chorus

Duration: 4m10s
Music: Shara Nova
Text: Shara Nova

Available versions:
SSAA Choir + Chamber Orchestra and piano performance part
SSAA Choir + Piano

PROGRAM NOTE:
This music was written in the summer of 2016, in response to the many killings of blacks in America. At the time of this composition, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were the most recent deaths that were highly publicized. My sorrow led me to research and I came across a teacher, Jane Elliot, who conducts an experiment called the “Blue-Eyes-Brown-Eyes” exercise. After watching a classroom session with her, my eyes were further opened to my own assumptions, power I took for granted, my racism, and my biases. Other readings relevant to the music were I, Racist by John Metta, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, and The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. Let the change begin in me.

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Blind to the Illness

SSAA + Chamber Orchestra + Piano Performance Part
$60

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Blind to the Illness

SSAA + Piano
$40

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TEXT/LYRICS:

power to ignore
power to walk away
power to defend
power to drive as fast as I can
power to pretend
power to see myself reflected
power to get in
power to believe I can do anything

I do not worry at night
I do not worry by day
I do not think about these things
I just go on my way
I see no color
how about you

but I’m blind to the illness
I was born inside this building
and I want to see the sun

I want out of the building getting out of this
building
I’m going blind
going blind with that illness
I wanna see color

Nature is the truest law on all the sun does shine
In every part of the one the other is entwined
Oh! The sun ‘n me are made of the same thing
Everything so beautifully in color