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performance world premiere by 200 musicians at 2021 MIT Commencement • Lyrics based on poetry by Sophia D-G ’22; Patricia Gao ’21; Cynthia Hua, Affiliated Research Assistant, Media Arts and Sciences; Moana Minton Meadow ’02; Maisha M. Prome ’21; and Kareena Villalobos ’22 • Poetry compiled and edited by Erica Funkhouser, MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing Director and Editor •Jean Dunoyer ‘87 Director of MIT Video Productions •Clayton Hainsworth Audio and Mastering Engineer •Jamshied Sharifi Recording Engineer •Cuco Daglio Performed by MIT Wind Ensemble Frederick Harris, Jr., Music Director Kenneth Amis, Assistant Conductor MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble Frederick Harris, Jr., Music Director MIT Symphony Orchestra Adam K. Boyles, Music Director MIT Concert Choir William Cutter, Music Director MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble Laura Grill Jaye, Music Director Rambax MIT Lamine Touré, Music Director With students from The Chorallaries of MIT The MIT Logarhythms MIT Syncopasian The MIT Asymptones MIT Resonance And with MIT community student participants Of the piece, Sharifi offers the following: Diary Of A Pandemic Year grew from a seed planted by Fred Harris and Gayle Gallagher; to compose and present a piece of music at MIT’s 2021 Commencement that reflected the unique challenges of the past year. Fred and Gayle had specific ideas about the architecture and tone of the piece: it should begin with a pensive fanfare, it should progress from dark to light, and it should incorporate text in some way. I find such guidance helpful in narrowing the scope of a composition and making it possible to begin writing. But it was not until Erica Funkhouser sent a compilation of student poems on the pandemic that the vision for the piece became clear. The emotional openness, simplicity, and at times aching sadness of their writing was my guiding light, and informed all compositional decisions. Reading their selected lines, and the longer poems from which they were drawn, I began to get a sense of the impact of the pandemic on young people – its larger significance given their fewer years on the planet, its limiting force on a time that should for them be exploratory and expansive, and its uncomfortable place in a matrix of unfolding calamities brought on primarily by human inattention and hubris. The current moment feels hopeful; the birds sing of new life. But I sense in the pandemic a warning, and an unsubtle suggestion that we should not “return to normal”, but seek an evolved, equitable, and holistic way of structuring our world. Our young people know this in their bones. We should listen. _____ To the list of things that make me sad, I add each day each day The color goes. This is the world: Just gray and gray and gray. Longing is the same in both directions. Look at the sky and remember Everything beautiful lies both forwards and backwards. Look at the sky and remember That it’s good to be alive. Overwriting the written constellations I create my own new map I trace my finger along the lines. I am the little blade of light Blade of light from the crack in the door. I am the orange wedge Of sun Of sun Through your window. This is the beginning of the story we tell again and again It is the beginning of the story we tell Who will listen? We are fragile we are precious we are fragile We are fragile we are precious we are fragile We are fragile we are precious Who will listen? Learn more about music at MIT https://mta.mit.edu/ Please Subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/c/MITVideoProductions