Westheimer: Singing as Resistance with Laura Clapp and Bob Lucas

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Westheimer Session Description:
This session asks participants to gather together to learn about how music inspires connection, community, and courage in the face of social and political challenges. Both Clapp and Lucas will share their experiences of using music as a means to creating social awareness and shared purpose. They will ask participants to join together singing as they reflect upon the role of music in creating awareness, hope, and solidarity among all people. 

Workshop facilitator/presenter bios:
Laura Clapp is assistant professor of Music and Wilmington College. Laura most recently served as faculty in the college of Literature, Science, and the Arts at the University of Michigan where she also directed the University of Michigan’s prison outreach choir, Out of the Blue. Prior to graduate studies, Laura worked with Voices of Hope, a Minneapolis-based prison choir organization, as a recipient of the Yale Glee Club Service Through Music Fellowship. While in Minnesota, Laura also co-directed StreetSong, a choir for people who have experienced homelessness, and directed the choir at Peace United Methodist Church. Laura has served as a soprano and teaching artist with Border CrosSing and performed as a violinist in a string quartet at U-M. During her time as an undergraduate student at Yale, Laura served as a student conductor of the Yale Glee Club and a researcher for the New Muses Project, contributing to their database of women and BIPOC composers.

Bob Lucas: Singing has been a way for me in this world. I grew up singing. The youngest of four boys. Mom would tell us, no singing until after supper.  When I sing with people I feel empathy with them. We feel it together one for the other. When I sing a song that I have written, I try to share an innocence and vulnerability that inspires empathy. Empathy leads to caring.  Caring can change a heart. 

We will sing together!

In 1964 I had a folk trio called the Young -Uns. I was 15. It was then I came in contact with many people who are now legends of traditional music. It was life changing.  I set my compass to a very clear though unknown destination. There was a world of old time traditional or whatever it might be called out there and I was going to find it. Folk Music was my destination and I am still headed there. 

The music has taken me on a mighty road. I have no regrets. 

In the late 60s I moved to Bloomington Indiana where I came in contact with a collision of folklore students, bluegrass pickers, oldtime fiddlers, jazz cats, rock and roll musicians, song writers, dancers and a myriad of other musical influences both local and international. Bliss. 

Time passed I made a good friend in the great Jeff White playing a bluegrass happy hour. He called me one afternoon. He was on his way to audition for a spot working with Alison Krauss and Union Station. He needed a couple songs did I have any? I gave him two. He went off and got the job. Then just like that he got a job workin with Vince Gill. He left Alison’s band but the songs stayed. She cut them both and three more. You never know when your standing underneath a lucky star. 

I played in lots of bands of many stripes then. I was the guitar player in a Bluegrass band and the banjo player in an old time band. I was writing tunes and songs that did and did not fit in those musical formats. I made a record that had banjo, horns and fuzz wa bass. Genre bender all the way.  

I worked for a story telling theater company called Mad River Theater Works for 35 years making and touring original plays with original music. Many many songs and stories. My love of traditions blended with a respect for what people say and sing to each other. I have always felt cradled in the loving arms of the music. The music that has cradled humanity since people needed a way to humor, educate, entertain, calm, excite, and every other need. Pass time and pleasure, up tight and cooled out. I go on. Thank you music. 

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