Last night we attended a musical concert in which our youngest son participated. It was a gala event which included three choirs, a wind ensemble and the orchestra. Each group had one piece they performed on their own but the work everyone was excited about and had come to hear was a mass piece in which all the groups participated. Carmina Burana by Carl Orff is one of those dramatic, big bold pieces of music that grabs even the casual listener.Written in 1935-36, it sets to music 24 poems found in a medieval monastery written by priests and others who had lost their faith in the church and the world.

"O Fortune,like the moon you are constantly changing,ever waxing and waning;hateful life now oppresses and then soothes as fancy takes it; poverty and power it melts them like ice.Fate – monstrous and  empty,you whirling wheel,you are malevolent,well-being is vain and always fades to nothing,shadowed
and veiled you plague me too;now through the game I bring my bare back to your villainy.
Fate, in health and virtue,is against me driven on and weighted down,always enslaved.So at this hour without delay pluck the vibrating strings;since Fate strikes down the strong man,everyone weep with me!"

So goes the most famous piece of the work. Luckily it is sung in Latin so you focus more on the power and beauty of the music and not how depressing the words are! These young people clearly loved performing this piece. Their audience loved listening. What struck me most is that this group of young people, wired by technology since their birth, connected with a piece of music decades old and to words centuries older. As they each did their part to create this monumental piece of music they were a united front. Their family background did not matter, nor the color of their skin.There were students from every economic background on the stage, a few who still struggle with the English language. Some students were certainly more skilled than others, many had had private lessons while others simply signed up for a class they may need to graduate. Yet no one person on the stage could have performed  this piece alone. They needed the talent and the commitment of the person standing beside them. Plainly put, they needed to rely on one another to create something bigger than themselves.

Fate, perhaps, had brought these student musicians together. But what they created in the moment was beautiful and lasting and, I believe, will stay with them for a very long time. The lessons they learned by tackling this challenging piece are the lessons of life: Show up, do your part, stick together, listen well, rest when you need to, create beauty when you can, offer your gifts to the world.

It promises to be a blustery weekend…….stay warm.