What a year it’s been. I think nearly every one of the 7+ billion humans on planet earth felt, in their own unique way, some connection of the personal/local to the political/global. In my case, news of the novel coronavirus hit the front pages of various news outlets midway through my third tour of China in mid-January, 2020 — this time on a short concert and teaching excursion with my colleagues Randal Despommier and Aubrey Johnson. We were at Ground Zero of what we could scarcely predict would become a traumatic and globally catastrophic pandemic, in the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province. Our first event was a concert featuring jazz and traditional Chinese music, with a wonderful classical Chinese music ensemble, for more than 1000 audience members in Wuhan’s principal concert space. For a while after I feared I might be patient zero…but later, I tested negative for any Covid-19 antibodies, had never been sick, and learned that the first strain to enter the US got here by way of Europe, which wasn’t on our itinerary.
Less than two months after we returned from Wuhan — just three days before China shut down Wuhan’s airport — the Black Lives Matter movement found new national and international mobilization with the atrocious killings of Amaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, among others. Fully masked and gloved, I joined peaceful protests in Harlem and the Upper West Side. Newspapers reported the largest civil rights marches in the nation’s history.
These two defining moments — a tragically mismanaged pandemic and the horrific slaughter of Black lives — framed a year of unspeakable loss, ineptitude, cruelty, and injustice. Add to that the deaths (Covid- related and otherwise) of dear family, friends, and mentors, and you have quite an awful brew.
As the Black Lives Matter protests began to expand and spread, it occurred to me what a strange position I occupied in this larger story. I’m a white Jewish guy, who had recently been in Wuhan, performing and teaching Black American Music (also known as “jazz”) to music teachers in China. I always tried to make sure, when teaching, that the origins of the music were contextualized in the unique American context of slavery and Jim Crow. So in a completely unpredictable way, my final trip to that central Chinese city of 11 million touched indirectly on the two principal crises of 2020, the pot simmering before the explosion…
Fast-forward to the end of 2020, and we have hope. We have the election of the nation’s first female, and first woman of color, to the Vice Presidency — VP Elect Kamala Harris. And we have President-Elect Joe Biden, who, while not my first choice in the Primaries, seems to grow stronger as Trump’s Presidency grows ever more indefensible. For all his mistakes of the past and political shortcomings, Biden embodies that which we need more than ever, and what has been lacking most these last four long years — empathy, compassion, and concern with taking care of one another.
My fiance Julie and I ended the year with a socially distanced, masked Christmas celebration with my parents, and a visit to her family as well. Initially wary of such a visit, I am so glad we could safely be with our loved ones. Being with each other has been all too rare in 2020. With the development of the various Covid-19 vaccines, I’m hoping we’ll have much more time to be together in 2021, especially as Julie and I begin to finalize save-the-dates and (a Covid-19 restricted number of) invitations to our wedding this upcoming year!
If 2020 has been a year of incalculable loss—in life, jobs, milestones, togetherness—let us hope that it has also been a year of immense personal, communal, and institutional learning. In 2021, I hope that all of us will be able to lead healthy, balanced, creative, and fulfilling lives — and that we are able to be together safely.
Finally, I offer you a video that my good friend Farayi Malek (on the West Coast) invited me (on the East Coast) to collaborate on in honor of the election of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden - Lift Every Voice, also known as the Black National Anthem. She really sings it beautifully, and it was a pleasure to be a part of this remote recording project: