There are multiple life events that I experienced prior to 2001 which I realized, in retrospect, contribuited to my conceptualization of Singers Of United Lands.  As a young boy, I had an unexplainable fascination with all things "Japan"- it's language, history, culture, people, etc.  I began to teach myself the Japanese language before the age of 13 (I can only remember a few phrases now).  In school, many "choice" assignments I was given ended up being centered around Japan. 

 

As an undergraduate college student I majored in Choral Music Education.  One day in 1997, outside of the college choir rehearsal room, there was a sign with just three words: SING IN JAPAN.  I called the number at the bottom of the poster.  A few months later, I was singing in Japan as a member of the World Youth Choir.  I was one of four Americans in an 80-voice choir of singers from age 17 to 26 who came together from more than 30 countries for one month of singing and touring together throughout Japan.  The music was excellent.  But more impactful to me was the personal interactions among the singers of this choir when we were not on stage- the meals, the partying, the discussions, the friendships and understanding, etc.  Between 1997 and 2001 I joined the World Youth Choir on seven tours to 15 countries on five continents working each tour with many of the same singers I had met during previous tours of this same choir.

 

In 1999, the management of the World Youth Choir (based in Belgium) asked me to organize the first USA tour of this choir.  I spent 18 months preparing for just nine days of touring throughout Florida after the choir completed two weeks of touring throughout Venezuela.  I was responsible for 83 singers and a staff of seven from more than 30 countries for these eight days: housing, food, transportation, concerts, tickets, logistics, international visas, etc.  What was I thinking?  I had no background or education in management, business, fund-raising, etc.  But I believed in the mission of this unique organization.  And I wanted to share this choir with my home country.

 

This tour was completed on August 17, 2001.  Two weeks later I was scheduled to begin basic training with the US Navy where I'd been offered a position as a lead singer of a rock-n-roll band.  During those two weeks, I remembered the many friends I'd come to know from the World Youth Choir and the impact they had made on my life- especially friends who had had negative experiences in their home countries with the US military.  I struggled internally to justify working in a nice, secure, paid position as a singer for an institution that, in the eyes of some of my World Youth Choir friends, had literally destroyed their home city.  I asked the Navy for a 3-month deferral on my basic training start date.  It was granted.  Two weeks later was 9/11.  I had heard that all military personnel, including musicians, were placed on "high alert".  My US military days were over before they began.

 

Though I loved my experiences with the World Youth Choir, I always felt as though there was potential for more cultural understanding that wasn't being harnessed.  For example, at the end of our concerts, our choir of 80 singers from all over the world would bow and exit through the stage door.  Meanwhile, the audience would exit through the lobby door.  I often wondered how these two entities could have more interactive opportunities.  I was enjoying all of the social and multicultural relationships with my fellow World Youth Choir singers.  But the audience only heard the music, the songs.  The audience didn't have a chance, like I did, to sit around a meal table with eight people from eight different countries and backgrounds and share thoughts, language, culture, etc.  After all, the singers from the World Youth Choir each came a long way to share their music with these audiences.  This thought rumbled in my mind throughout my World Youth Choir years.

 

By early 2002 I was in my second year as a music teacher.  I was enjoying the beginning of a teaching career.  I kept hearing buzzwords in education academia circles like "diversity" and "multiculturalism" and "peace and unity" and "cultural understanding".  Ironically, most people that I saw on the front lines of educating students were white Americans- most of whom had never been outside of the USA- most of whom interacted only with people of a different ethnicity or nationality if they were forced to.  I also witnessed music educators bearing a brunt of the responsibility of reaching mandated benchmarks of "diversity" by exposing their music students to songs from around the world... 

 

For example, a white school administrator might request their white music teacher to teach their white students a song from South Africa as part of a Black History Month school assembly.  This might satisfy that school administrator and make them feel proud to advertise that Black History is taught in their school.  In an attempt to satisfy a similar request of me by my school's administrator I taught my students a Polish folk song.  But I couldn't stop thinking about the three Polish singers I had worked with in the World Youth Choir.  I knew that these Polish musicians were living and working in Poland as music teachers.  Yes, I was able to read the printed music of a published Polish folk song.  I could listen to the recording of a native Polish speaker and try to pronounce the words for my music students to learn.  But I wondered how I could bring my Polish musician friends into my music classroom to do what I could not.  I wanted to be able to say to my students, "This is MY Polish language.  Here is a photo of MY home in Warsaw.  When I was your age my experience in school in Poland was...  Now, let me teach you MY favorite Polish song.  Please sing MY Polish song with me."  I could not give such a personal account of the importance that this music had as authentically nor as powerfully as a music educator in Poland could.

 

For two years I prepared for a five-month experiment called S.O.U.L.  I didn't know if it would succeed or not.  I invited four friends of mine that I had met in the World Youth Choir to join me in this experiment.  I learned a lot in those two years- immigration law, social security law, business law, business management, business administration, payroll, setting a price point, product development, establishing a corporation, forming a board of directors, securing startup funds, promotion, marketing, sales, etc.  I learned a lot by failing a lot.  I made many errors in those first years.  I made enemies and ruffled many feathers (though never intentionally).  I lost thousands of dollars during that first tour ("experiment").  The only reason I decided to attempt a second tour was because of the overwhelmingly positive response we received from nearly every hosting teacher, student, and family that worked with the singers of that first tour.  It's because of the positive responses from these hosts- teachers, schools, organizations- that S.O.U.L. continues each year.

 

Though the singers who make up the quartet, and the countries which are represented, change each year, the purpose of the Singers Of United Lands organization remains as it did from the beginning: