Darren Abrahams
— S I N G E R S O N T H E F R O N T L I N E S —
Singers on the Front Lines is a series of interviews with singers working to promote wellbeing, social justice, and sharing the gift of song with vulnerable communities. Subscribe (below) to receive notifications of future posts.
Darren Abrahams is a singer, coach, therapist and trainer and works internationally as a facilitator and project leader in the fields of personal, cultural and community development. He is a qualified trauma therapist, a Certified High Performance Coach and has appeared in opera all over the world. Darren is also a Wellbeing Adviser and an international trainer for Musicians Without Borders where he trains musicians to use music for peace building with refugees and in post conflict communities. He is co-founder of The Human Hive which trains volunteer and professional teachers to work in non-formal and emergency situations. He also co-founded The Starr Trust which supports young people to fulfill potential through sports, arts and education. He is on the steering team and head of pastoral care for The Complete Freedom of Truth, an international youth-led project developing global youth citizenship through culture and the arts.
SonicBloom: What does the phrase “singers on the front lines” mean to you?
Darren Abrahams: Well, I come from a formal musical background, opera, which takes place in a special place (an opera house) and is part of the classical music industry. So, for me, the “front lines” is work that happens outside of those spaces — the interconnecting points where artists and the community meet, where the boundary between who is an artist, and who is not, is broken down. Places where people use singing and music as a tool for personal development, social justice, ecological renewal, and facilitating the creativity of others.
SB: What’s happening on your “front lines” right now, and what role does music play?
DA: My “front lines” currently involve multiple projects. My work with Musicians Without Borders (MWB) revolves around supporting the wellbeing of the team and training musicians to carry out our mission. I’m also building an online project for Refugee Week with Jim Pinchen, the founder of the I Speak Music Community Orchestra, to develop a new piece of music on the theme of “Imagine”. I’m also collaborating with Nadine Benjamin, a UK-based soprano, to co-create an opera based on her life story. She’s had a very interesting life, and the story will look at the effect trauma has on the nervous system, and how music and singing can help to rebuild a fractured life, and thrive.
I’ve worked for many years with Opera Circus in community development work, using mixed arts to empower young people to take social action around the world. To date we have run projects in Bosnia, Serbia, Italy, Portugal and the UK and we’re currently planning the next phase of our work. We’re taking some time to refine our process which is based on democratic and total inclusion principals.
SB: I wouldn’t automatically associate opera with the “front lines”, but what do you think opera has to offer?
DA: I will admit I have a love/hate relationship with opera — not the art form itself, but the structures and edifices that have been built around it. It’s an expensive art form because you need an orchestra, singers, and a lot of different forces to pull it together, so naturally you end up performing to people with money. There’s a lot of travel involved, you’re often performing revivals so it can be less creative, and lots of the audience come to boost their status rather than for a love of the art.
But what opera has to offer is that it’s a composite of all the arts, bringing together drama, music dance and design into a highly emotional synthesis. Opera allows us to experience a story differently than watching a play. It takes emotional moments and heightens them, which goes beyond the rational, straight to a visceral experience. It takes an emotional moment and elongates it, allowing you time to really experience the feelings before the story continues.
There’s a lot of interesting innovation going on in opera today, and people are questioning the traditional idea of sopranos in big dresses using a certain kind of vocal production, and asking, can opera incorporate other art forms like rap, graffiti art, even Parcour? Throughout its history opera has been used to make social and political statements — for example Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and several of Verdi’s operas — making strong statements about social change and revolution. In my opinion, there’s actually a lot more innovative work coming out of opera education departments than on the main stage. I’ve worked closely over the last few years with the education department at Glyndebourne Opera on their most recent youth operas, which have addressed current issues such as the refugee crisis, exile and nationalism.
SB: When I think about opera, as opposed to say, a musical, I think about the tone quality. As a psychotherapist, and someone who has studied opera and the psycho-social effect of singing, can you explain how an operatic tone quality affects the body and mind? What is physically going on?
DA: What’s going on is that there’s a full system impact when we engage with music — biological, psychological and social. As music comes in, it hits our auditory nerve, which interacts with the Vagus nerve, one of the 10 cranial nerves. The Vagus nerve serves many important regulatory functions in the body — one pathway controls our primitive, shut-down mechanism (freeze and faint), and another our social engagement and regenerative systems. It interacts with our facial muscles, our vocal muscles, our lungs, our heart, and has an effect on the chemicals that we release into our blood stream. Psychologically music can change our mood and help us access emotions. Socially we come together in shared experiences. The power of the operatic voice is that it uses the whole resonating capability of the body without any mechanical amplification getting in the way. When that pure sounds hits our body it can have a profound effect on every part of our being.
SB: This sounds very powerful for people dealing with trauma, and I think about the refugee crisis that was unfolding even before COVID-19. I know you’ve done a lot of work with refugees. What are you seeing right now in these communities? What are some of the challenges, and are there particular projects you think are doing especially good work?
DA: The situation for people going through the refugee experience right now is really hard. There’s even more isolation because there’s not always access to stable Internet, and support groups are finding it challenging to maintain connection without access to face-to-face interaction. We’re also seeing volunteers who have travelled to work with refugees stuck in various locations because of lock-downs and unable to continue their work. I’ve been most concerned with the wellbeing of these volunteers because there’s not an infrastructure around them to support their own psycho-social needs. I’ve been commissioned to provide psychosocial support sessions and supervision during this period, so in some ways the pause brought on by COVID-19 is allowing some reflection and time to redress the gap. Well cared for volunteers means better cared for refugees. This is why we created The Human Hive, as a way to train, resource and support people doing caring work in different situations.
SB: Sounds like very inspiring work. Is there someone who’s inspiring you right now, who’s singing on the “front lines”?
DA: I really admire Laura Hassler, and the whole team at Musicians Without Borders. The whole direction the organization is going is very inspiring and adaptive. The past couple of years they’ve worked to create a really flexible training, opening up new projects in different parts of the world and expanding the training team, while still maintaining a caring and personal working style. Laura’s family background in the US Civil Rights Movement* is constantly inspiring and I am proud to be part of work that continues in that lineage. I also admire Tina Ellen Lee, the Artistic Director of Opera Circus who has developed fantastic cultural work with young people by navigating the very challenging political environments around International Aid. Both of these women are singers and though they might not be actually singing now, their personal history with song permeates everything they do.
SB: Darren, it’s been such an honor to have this conversation with you. Thanks for taking the time. Is there anything else you want to say about the role of music right now, in these times?
DA: The role of music right now is absolutely vital. It’s a hugely important tool that we as a species have created to help us feel good, express ourselves, come together, and explore our humanity. Whether you are experiencing music that has been created by someone else, or creating your own music, it has a very powerful effect and can really help you to navigate this challenging period of time. All cultural activities are important right now — drawing, knitting, cooking — but there’s something different about music, which bypasses the cognitive brain and goes straight into our nervous system. Our voice is our own, unique, individual sound. It’s how we communicate, develop trust, and share with each other. It speaks to our inter-dependence. Through music we can allow others to be who they are, without competition, without fearing anyone who’s different. We survive best through collaboration and cooperation and music gives us the tool to do it well.
*Laura Hassler’s father was Alfred Hassler, an anti-war activist and co-author of the 1957 advocacy comic book, Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story.
“The role of music right now is absolutely vital . . . Our voice is our own, unique, individual sound. It’s how we communicate, develop trust, and share with each other. It speaks to our inter-dependence. Through music we can allow others to be who they are, without competition, without fearing anyone who’s different.
To access Human Hive’s online course and their online community, click here.
To access Darren’s Facebook page with videos and interviews, click here.