Music has become a powerful voice to express the fight for the environmental crisis. Local Boston music groups have combined performance with activism in an effort to empower younger generations.
White Snake Projects, a Boston-based activist opera company, held a concert collaborating with the Boston Music Project, featuring the Vivaldi Orchestra and singer Hannah Shanefield in Josiah Quincy Elementary School Auditorium March 14.
This performance was a part of the Sing Out Strong series, “a community song series where we reach out to regular people in our community, not necessarily professionals,” said Cerise Jacobs, the founding artistic director of White Snake Projects. The series commissions them to write pieces focused on different activist themes.
“We have students writing for us. We have cooks and chefs and electricians writing about their experiences for this year,” Jacobs said. “We’re talking about young people, middle aged people and older people.”
The theme for 2025 was climate, with the prompt being “What does the climate crisis mean for your generation?” Three pieces premiered at the concert. The lyrics of the pieces, originally poems, were written by individuals aged 16-77 and were set to music by various composers.
“It’s one thing to just see the effects of climate change going on and feeling helpless and that you can’t do anything,” said Vivaldi Conductor and Director Sébastein Ridoré. “But [these kids] have music, they have something. They can make their voices be heard, this gives them an outlet.”
One of the pieces titled “We Say Stop!” was written by 15-year-old Rose Wagnac, a high school student at the Boston International Newcomers Academy.
Composer J. Andrés Ballesteros said the poem sought to share the message of “caring for our planet and caring for our animals and asking us to stop doing things that are hurting them.”
“When I read these words, I thought what can we do with the music? It’s got to be big and dramatic, and we are going to have some moments where we just stop the music, so we can listen to what sounds around us are doing,” Ballesteros said, describing his process of composing.
Shanefield said the poem set to music was “a great way to form call-to-actions through art.”
“It gives them an opportunity to feel empowered, and that’s really great because the worst thing is that climate change is happening,” Ridoré said. “But we can’t lose hope.”
The concert uniquely allowed young students the opportunity to collaborate with a variety of music professionals. From the writing of the poems to the composition of the music, the creative process was interactive, Ridoré said.
“A lot of this is just showing the students what’s possible,” he said. “While students normally learn through a classical repertoire, this was an opportunity for them to play a piece of music that was made specifically for a younger age group,” Ridoré said.
As someone who grew up in Boston and has seen the effects of the climate crisis, Ridoré said this project has also allowed him to experience climate change through the eyes of his students.
Shanefield noted how climate change contributes to the decline of the global birth rate, which he added is a fear for future generations.
“If we are already seeing the negative impact of climate change just over a couple decades, what’s it going to be like a couple decades from now?” Shanefield said. “Are we even building a world that’s safe enough for the future generations?”
But Shanefield found comfort in this project.
“Projects like this assure me there is change that we can make through art and that it can be especially compelling to get messaging across,” Shanefield said.
Jacobs said she felt the concert was extremely successful, and she is excited at an ongoing relationship between these two groups.
“We are very lucky to have BMP as our collaborator,” she said. “It’s not just the fact that young kids are learning to play music, but it’s also young kids are being exposed to all these issues.”
Ridoré also said the groups needed the support of one another to put on a production like Sing Out Strong.
“We wouldn’t have ever been able to put a concert on like this without White Snakes,” he said. “White Snakes wouldn’t be able to put on or provide this type of programming without the Youth Ensemble to perform their youth pieces as it stands right now.”
Shanefield said there will be at least one following performance of the songs, with the addition of three more songs on the same topic.
White Snake Projects’ mission focuses on building a world where opera emboldens community through storytelling. Sing Out Strong is just one of their initiatives working towards that goal.
“I really believe in this saying that high tide lifts all ships,” said Ridoré. “The more that we can work together, the more connections that there are between the arts, the stronger the arts actually become.”
