The Columbus-based Harmony Project chorus is expanding to include voices from all over the state.
“The goal is to create a network of people, artists and communities throughout the state who believe in the power of music to bring people together,” said Harmony Project Creative Director David Brown.
Last August, the National Endowment for the Arts surprised Harmony Project with a $150,000 grant. It was one of just nine grants given nationwide and the only one given to an Ohio organization.
“They said they have been watching our work since about 2017, and that they were launching this new pilot program around the idea of arts as a vital tool in lessening isolation and division,” Brown said. “We kind of saw this as a beautiful way for us to take music throughout the state into different places.”
Brown said while harmony implies music, Harmony Project is really about creating social harmony and building community.
"It's not to change people's minds necessarily, but it's to get people working together who normally would not know each other, interact with each other, and using music as a way that brings them together," Brown said.
Harmony Project volunteers work in Ohio prisons and with immigrant and refugee students in the Northland community and differently-abled adults all over Franklin County. Once a year, Harmony Project focuses all its manpower on one neighborhood in Columbus, during “One Week, One Neighborhood,” Brown said.
Harmony Project is probably best known, however, for its main chorus, which is 500 voices strong. Members come from all walks of life, from CEOs and attorneys to college students and people recently released from prison. Brown said the chorus also brings people together from various Columbus zip codes, combatting the city’s sprawl.
This spring, the chorus’ size will double, as community choirs and singing groups from all over the state come to Columbus for “The Concert for Humanity.” The performance is set for May 1 at the Schottenstein Center.
Brown said Harmony Project is working with the Ohio Arts Council and searching online to find interested groups from urban and rural areas in every corner of the state to add another 500 voices to sing alongside the central Ohio chorus.
“That 500-voice choir is going to blow you away. And then when those other 500 stand and join and there's a 1,000 voice chorus there, it's going to be the sound of what Ohio could sound like in harmony together,” Brown said.
Singers will use recordings to practice at home then will have just one rehearsal together before the concert, Brown said.
“Our goal is to get people to understand that their differences are something that they can build on, rather than use or weaponize against each other,” Brown said. “It doesn't mean that we're all going to be able to have a conversation about politics or religion or anything like that. But when you get everybody in, and you strip those things away, and you put them to the side momentarily, we find that there are so many things in common.”
