A Passionate Grace

A bass guitar strummed out a mean tune. The power of the rhythm guitar screamed and wailed as the drums thrummed the beat. The lead singer screeched the finale of the song. Applause reverberated around the high-tech concert hall. The hall served as a school auditorium and the students showed their musicianship at the Redding Academy for Performing Arts (RAPA). The students all hugged each other and looked out at the crowd. The lights on the stage dimmed and the house lights illuminated.

“Good night!” the lead singer said.

As the crowd departed they still sung the words and hummed the melody. The students met backstage and encountered their teacher, Mr. Brosnan Kiln. He was forty-four, medium brown skinned, the same color of an oak table. He was thirty-nine and had flecks of gray hair in his beard and atop his close cut dome.

“That was an excellent show out there.” That’s all he said and turned to leave. The knocking of his cognac colored loafers diminshed as the students knew what to do.

The locking of guitar cases and the dismantling of drum sets prompted all of them to return their tools of creation to their proper homes.

“What can we do to push even further?” Lance Lindo asked. He was seventeen, the oldest and lead guitarist and vocalist. He was black as night.

“We can start by having you bring more bass in your voice,” Carletta Bowers recommended. She handled the drums.

“That’s constructive criticism,” Lindo accepted. “I’ll have to work on that,” he said. “Anyone else?”

“Mr. Kiln said we did an excellent job. He says that we usually need to tighten up on whatever instrument. Now, I think he’s playing mind games. That was not our best set.”

“Over two dozen bands, usually with black musicians, have sprung from the womb of this school over the past decade since the law was passed for all schools across the country to be privatized,” Carletta observed.

“And we’re just another example of that tradition,” Lindo said.

“I think we should be composers,” bassist and keyboardist Leal June blurted out.

The rest of the band looked at her in curiosity. It was a look that held wonder and possibility.

“We’ve already studied the classics, there are enough rock bands. Even jazz bands are gaining ground again. Hip hop is the most dominant genre. What if we wrote music with soaring melodies and profound chords? Yes, Leal, I think that’s a splendid idea,” Lindo stated.

After all of the instruments had been packed or placed in storage, the three artists looked for ways to tell Mr. Kiln about the idea of composing contemporary works. They all slept on it.

In the morning, the class lacked Lindo, Carletta, and Leal or Little Cartel. They arrived with the minute hand on the four.

“You’re late. You should be glad you survived the five minute grace period. And where are your instruments?”

“We don’t need them, sir,” Carletta announced. She walked over to the piano. Leal and Lindo folded their arms. The rest of the class and Mr. Kiln watched as the eleventh grader sat at the percussive instrument. Her fingers swept over the keys and produced sounds of infinite beauty. The wondrous notes filled the room and permitted the entire class and the instructor to witness the sense of ambition and hope, rage and tranquility, and a passionate grace. Once she stopped her performance. The class erupted in applause and Kiln clapped as well.

“Put away your saxophone, your drum machines, and your computers. We’re going back a few centuries to the classics,” Mr. Kiln mentioned.

A few groans rose up in the room.

“Did you not just witness this offering by your fellow student. I’m going to teach you how to write and perform music just like that. But it will be different this time. We’re going to study to be composers of music for orchestras and trios and quintets and more.”

Then, a woman came rushing into the classroom. “It’s over. They’re repealing the law,” It was Tricia Edwards, 41, dark skinned like coffee grounds. Her heels preceded her as she broke the news. “It’s about the private schools, they want to revert back to government ones.”

“On a day like this,” Kiln kissed his teeth. “Class, this is no setback. We will fight.” That’s all he said because that’s all he had to say.

Tricia turned on the flatscreen in the room. The students looked at their smartphones where the journalists plastered the headline on all the news sources and social media accounts. The social networks became inflamed with shouting matches and ugly displays of character or the lack thereof.

“This is for the music,” Kiln looked at his class. “You can put away your phones, now. We’re here to make art. That’s it. So we will be composers and show how private schools can be paid for at the rate of a new one of those devices in your hands. Put them away.”

The class followed the instruction. “Now, what this means is that we’re going to remember our rudiments. We’re going to study the masterful composers who contributed so much gorgeousness to this world.”

Kiln ran over the notes and watched as his students filled the digital pages with their mind and soul and truth. Each one of them recalled the first days of Musicology and looked forward to composing and allowing the other students to use their instruments to bring the tunes to life.

The risk remained. If they continued to study under the system of free enterprise, they could be shut down altogether and ironically not receive the funds that they rejected in the first place.

“Mr. Kiln, what if we have a major concert showing off our talents with composition as the key? That might scare away the agents of destruction who plague us,” Carletta asked.

“That’s actually a brilliant idea. If we can show them that private schools are the only rational means of gaining knowledge, then that will be our statement, our banner of pride,” Kiln replied.

Lindo held up his digital tablet and shouted, “To the private school system!”

Everyone else just hooted and hollered. Kiln pressed both hands in the air to the ground. “Now, I can feel your enthusiasm. I know because I was teaching before the implementation of reason and I expect to have it still in place. We’re not going back to broken pedals and rusty tubas. We’re not going to have an orchestra missing violins and violas lacking strings. We’re going to make music.”

“That’s what we have to fight, sir,” Leal addressed her instructor.

The class then jumped from their seats and marched out of the classroom. They found well-kept trombones and clarinets. They found oboes and bassoons. They stomped out of the classroom and spilled into the hallway. The pristine sounds of the harmonies and melodies all corresponded with each other. Other teachers looked bewildered by the sound of the oxymoronic contemporary classical music. They walked to the federal building in Wilmington, Delaware.

The government officials all attempted to shut down the music and make it stop. The class of about twenty five students all with their instruments engaged, flouted the stuffiness of the men and women in the halls. As the sounds emitted from their musical tools, they played until the director finally said enough.

“We have a right to play under private means,” Kiln said. “Look at these kids. They’re not exceptionally wealthy. In fact some of them could be labeled poor. But their parents still wanted them to be trained privately.”

Director Braun Klimpton was the color of dogwood bark. At fifty-seven, he looked tired and his face drooped due to no medical condition. It just seemed to hang from the years of participating in bureaucracy. “It’s not my say. The government is flipping it over to the states and local governments. I’m sorry.” He seemed sincere but the kids weren’t having it. They blasted their music again and this time, when they finished a movement, they heard a scattered applause.

“Once we petition the United States government that capitalistic schools are the only way, we will see a groundswell in the way that young people will operate in this country and the world,” Kiln said.

In the days to come, the government held onto the idea of keeping schools from pre-K to post doctorate private across America. At this the composers all stood. They felt that their achievement had something to do with their skills in writing music and playing it with vigor and passion. At a concert a few weeks later, Kiln addressed the audience.

“I can’t wait to see how many of you become actual composers of contemporary classical music. Not the ugly notes that other ‘composers’ tend to have but actual musicians who took the time to study the art. No government ought to touch such a thing of wonder,” Kiln said. The students all wore tuxedos and gowns. They applauded with their bows and with their hands. During the roughly one hour concerto, they found freedom in their sound and knowledge that touched all of their souls.

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