By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
PLYMOUTH – Children who are the victims of war in Ukraine got some help in a last-minute fundraiser on their behalf Monday night in which the singers of the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum lent their youthful voices to the cause after having to cancel events in Canada due to this nation’s political climate.
Lisa Mure of Common Man Ukraine explained to the audience at the Plymouth Congregational Church that their good fortune for having the choir in Plymouth was at the expense of Canadians who were to hear the choir. But due to the threats Harvard is facing from the Trump Administration including matters of foreign students and federal funding, those shows were cancelled.
“This is another impact of what is happening in our country. They had a regular tour already booked that included some locations in Canada and they have international students and they were worried about their international students,” on their return to re-enter the United States, she said.
The 30 Harvard students hold passports from about a dozen countries.
They performed works of Bach, Copeland and work of their own Jerry Li, for a single night fundraiser for Common Man Ukraine.
They began with the anthem of the school “Fair Harvard” a song they might typically perform at the end of a concert, said Andrew Clark, director of choral activities and conductor “but we wanted to share a spirit of pride with you tonight. Our college, especially now…” he said, interrupted by applause, as Harvard stands up for educational freedom and against the Trump Administration which seems to be singling out the prestigious school for its protests related to the war in Israel with efforts to cut out foreign students and cut funding.
“…But also as a sense of responsibility that comes with it to use what we learn and who we become in the service of something greater. And what makes this choir really unique, in my view, is the chance to learn from, sing with and be shaped by peers from all over the world. Our ensemble tonight of 30 singers represents about a dozen different countries,” he said to applause. “And the music we make is richer and more meaningful because of the diversity of these voices, their cultures and experiences that come together in harmony,” Clark said.
“We are grateful, too, for the opportunity to be here tonight, thanks to the efforts of Common Man for Ukraine, and their ongoing humanitarian work. And in that spirit of reaching beyond borders and connecting through our common humanity, we offer this evening of music for you.”
Lisa Mure of Common Man Ukraine thanked the singers for making the last-minute detour to Plymouth to help their cause after noting a vacancy in their tour. She said Clark is a friend and former colleague of Common Man Ukraine supporter and State Rep. Peter Lovett, D-Holderness, who invited them to come to Plymouth to fill the spot in the tour.
Susan Mathison of Common Man for Ukraine noted that she, Alex Ray, Mure, and Steve Rand of Common Man Ukraine are planning their 13th trip to Poland and Ukraine.
She said, “we know that 40,000 Ukraine children have been kidnapped to Russia,” and that it will be a lot for these youths, the future of their country, to be helped.
The Common Man Ukraine effort was started by the four Plymouth area individuals just after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, 2022.
They are Alex Ray of the Common Man, Steve Rand, Susan Mathison and Lisa Mure. Ray and Rand are long-time members of the Plymouth Rotary Club.
The four were scooping free ice cream after the concert, outdoors wearing their hand-sewn Ukrainian shirts.
With the help of many other Rotary Clubs across the state and the Common Man family of restaurants, fundraising has included more than 4,000 donors who help pay for trauma support, food and therapeutic retreats for children who have lost their fathers in the war.
According to information online, the amount raised so far is over $2.7 million and it is growing with events planned this summer across the state.
In Bristol, a Ukulele concert will be held on Wednesday July 9 at 7 p.m. at United Church of Christ to help the Common Man for Ukraine effort.
Also in August, a musical tour involving five Ukrainian teens will be rehearsing in New Hampshire and performing “Voices from Ukraine Stories of War and Hope” in locations in New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts.
Mure explained the production started from Common Man Ukraine’s project in Poland where they receive Ukrainian children between the ages of 8 and 12 for a three-week trauma retreat.
It happens every month with a new set of children, Mure said, and it is magical for these grieving children.
“They can be kids again. There are no air raid sirens. They just get to recover themselves, learn some coping skills, this is really a magical, magical project. It happens every month with a new set of Ukrainian children and sadly there are far too many who are being orphaned by this war,” said Mure.
Dr. Trish Lindberg, who retired from the Education Theater Collaborative in Plymouth and has been a long-time professor at Plymouth State University and friend of the effort, has written a musical production based on the letters of the Ukrainian children who attend those retreats.
Lindberg has used the words of those children to create a musical and has gone to help with art therapy at the camp.
She wrote a musical based on the words of children for an Education Theater Collaborative production more than 10 years ago called “Mail to the Chief” in which American children were asked to tell the future president what was important to them, as part of New Hampshire’s First-in-the Nation primary.
“Voices from Ukraine, Stories of War and Hope,” will bring five Ukrainian teens to New Hampshire this summer to practice and will perform in Concord and Newbury, New Hampshire; York, Maine, Burlington, Vermont; Newton, Mass. and Boston at a Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Boston just about the time of Ukrainian Independence Day, Aug. 24, Mure said.
Tuesday night, as the final leg of their “Come to the Woods” tour, but not connected to Common Man for Ukraine, the Harvard students will sing at The Park Theatre in Jaffrey at 7 p.m. The other stops on their tour were in Burlington and Middlebury, Vermont and Cambridge.
For more information on the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum and its tour visit https://hrcm.org/
For more information on Common Man for Ukraine visit https://commonmanforukraine.org/.