Photo: Madeline Kauffman
It was surprisingly lively in the lobby of the Leffler Chapel and Performance Center around 7:10 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 11.
The focus of the night’s event was World War One which matched the Veterans’ Day program. It has been 100 years since the first world war.
There was a crowd of about fifty people as Elizabethtown College President Dr. Carl Strikwerda took the microphone to discuss his experience studying the Great War as a historian.
“The war taught the world a great lesson about peace,” he said.
“It is possible only when we work for it.”
Etown often hosts events that strive to recognize peace through different channels and media. This specific event centered around a variety of musical and poetic exhibitions performed by members of the College and surrounding communities.
The Etown Music Department performed a sampling of patriotic turn-of-the-century music to start off the program.
The opening number of this George Cohan medley, “Over There,” was one of the most notable patriotic songs of its era.
Senior music student Stephen Roldan commented after the show that Veterans’ Day is a “reflective holiday,” and that the “point is to think about the past.”
“The music takes its time to let you notice all of its subtle intricacies,” Roldan continued.
“It’s just like the marching onward of history—never straightforward. It’s fitting for both today and for yesteryear.”
Professor of music Dr. Justin Badgerow took the stage on piano for “They Remain,” accompanying a men’s choir with an impressionistic, haunting anti-flair.
The oboe, offered by student Tiffany Hoffman, cut through the depressive tone of the baritone piece.
This was a sad, grey moment in history—the arts can often help the audience recall what it is like to be in the present tense.
“The somber tone of the arts speaks to a deeper humanity,” Dr. Badgerow said after the concert. “There is a unity between all of us, between man and fellow man. Bernstein said it best: ‘this should be our reply to violence, to make music more intensely and beautifully than ever before.’”
A poem about death followed, read by Donald Bender. This tone warmed the audience up a bit. It moved the audience to applause and was followed up by a grim piece by Charles Ives called “In Flanders Fields.”
Dr. Badgerow, who appeared through most of the program, made note of the political significance of music in our culture before the performance of Ravel’s “Tombeau de Couperin,” paraphrasing the late French composer that his fellow musicians should not ignore other nations’ works.
This was similar to a speech by French President Emmanuel Macron earlier in the day—“patriotism is the opposite of nationalism,” he said.
Some say that Veterans’ Day is not a holiday in the traditional sense, but a holy-day. It is a day to honor, not to simply celebrate.
Sophomore Morgan Smith confirmed that for her, Veterans’ Day is not such a party holiday.
“The gift is recognizance, we are to drink from humanity and not from the tap, and we can’t afford to forget,” Smith said.
“It’s a holiday we need, sad as its context in sacrifice it may be. We live in a society.”
