On Saturday, March 21, members of the Cranford High School Concert Choir performed alongside other high school-age singers in the “This is Me” Festival Choir at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. Lincoln Center is considered one of the most prestigious concert halls in the entire world for the architectural acoustics of its numerous auditoriums.
The “This is Me” Festival, coordinated by the company National Concerts, was established in response to the high rates of LGBTQ+ teen suicide that plagued the early 2010s. The festival offers a safe, informative, and inclusive space for LGBTQ+ students and allies to build communities and celebrate diverse identities through song.
During the rehearsal process, participating students were fortunate enough to speak with a representative from the Tyler Clementi Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to combat bullying in schools and online. Here, students were educated about harmful anti-gay stigmas and the sense of alienation that many members of the LGBTQ+ community suffer as a result. Afterwards, many students took the foundation’s upstander pledge, committing to speaking out against bullying and harassment wherever they may encounter it.
Additionally, students were treated to a video-call with composer Stephen Schwartz, the musical phenom behind Wicked, Pippen, and the lyrics to Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Pocahontas. Schwartz has composed numerous choral works in celebration of LGBTQ+ identity, one of many being “Testimony,” which the “This is Me” Festival Choir performed during their Lincoln Center performance. Schwartz wrote “Testimony” as a contribution to the It Gets Better Project, a storytelling effort aimed at providing young, vulnerable members of the LGBTQ+ community with the stories and support of older members. The greatest challenge the piece poses is its sensitive subject matter. The text—formatted by Schwartz—is a compilation of testimonies from the It Gets Better Project, testimonies that discuss many gay men’s thoughts of and attempts at suicide. At the end of the piece, however, the lamentation of differences blooms into the acceptance and celebration of diversity:
“And when I die / And when it’s my time to go / I want to come back as me / I want to come back as me.”
“Testimony,” alongside the rest of the choral repertoire, offered each student the valuable opportunity to confront anti-LGBTQ+ stigma through musical expression. The lessons learned in this process were the true success of the “This is Me” Festival.
Congratulations to the CHS Concert Choir for this achievement, and a special congratulations to Mr. Anthony Rafaniello, the director of choirs at Cranford High School. Mr. Rafaniello, an accomplished musician educated at Westminster Choir College and Columbia University, served as the rehearsal and concert pianist for the “This is Me” Festival. Rafaniello’s commitment to his students is a special quality, and the CHS Concert Choir is incredibly grateful for his selflessness.
