Rossini, Cherubini, and Paris
by berberis on Nov.15, 2015, under Choir, Concerts, LCS, Personal, Rehearsals
Saturday, 14th November 2015, Goldsmith’s College.
“On the evening of 13 November 2015, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks occurred in Paris, the capital of France, and its northern suburb, Saint-Denis. Beginning at 21:20 CET, three suicide bombers struck near the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, followed by suicide bombings and mass shootings at cafés, restaurants, and a concert hall in Paris. The attackers killed 130 people, including 89 at the Bataclan theatre, where they took hostages before engaging in a stand-off with police. There were 368 people who were wounded, 80-99 seriously so. Seven of the attackers also died, while authorities continued to search for accomplices. The attacks were the deadliest on France since World War II, and the deadliest in the European Union since the Madrid train bombings in 2004. France had been on high alert since the January 2015 attacks in Paris that killed 17 people, including civilians and police officers.” (Taken from Wikipedia, Sunday 27th December.)
This left all of us shocked, angry, and saddened. The mood was subdued at rehearsal and it was decided to dedicate the concert to those killed, for the little good it would do.
But what do you do? Send money, I suppose, and clothes. Maybe food. Moral support. Once you’ve done this, all that is really left is to be bloody thankful that it wasn’t you or your loved ones. Because, for most of us, the fact that there are people in the world who think it’s acceptable to kill anyone who doesn’t agree with them is as incomprehensible as it is terrifying.
Sadly, there always have been and there always will be those who are so ignorant, so gullible, or so bitter and twisted, that wholesale slaughter of dis- or un-believers is not only acceptable but justified by the religious tract to which they slavishly adhere.
And it is religion at the heart of all of this. Evangelicals of all stripes pick and choose what they like from their chosen book, but endorsements for the most extreme behaviour lurks in the pages of all of them. Some of the most ardent churchgoers I’ve known were guilty of half a dozen of the so-called crimes for which the Christian Bible mandates the death penalty.
Once it was sticks and stones. Now it’s Semtex, suicide bombers, high velocity rifles, planes into buildings, and more, all coordinated through social media. Popular newspapers tell us that we need to be suspicious of anyone who’s different. Those in the silent majority (and I don’t mean frothing-at-the-mouth right/left wing idiots who get more than enough air time/column inches) need to remind themselves and educate the next generation that “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” leaves the world toothless and blind.
As for the concert, it went well. The audience was large, and generous with their applause. For a couple of hours, in a hall in New Cross – far from the carnage in Paris – a small group of people cooperated with a single purpose, and produced something beautiful.
