By Jarvus Ricardo Hester
There are two kinds of new beginnings in New York.
The first comes with champagne, a photographer and someone saying, “This is going to be huge.”
The second comes with a set of keys.
The first one looks better on Instagram.
The second one is usually where the real work begins.
This season, Harlem Collective Opera, Harlem Boys Choir and Harlem Chamber Orchestra have a new home at the Booker T. Washington Community Center.
And naturally, I have questions.
Because in Harlem, we have become very good at announcing the next big thing.
New development.
New restaurant.
New gallery.
New luxury building.
New cultural initiative.
New everything.
But somewhere between the ribbon cutting and the press release, New York has a funny way of asking:
Okay. But what are you actually going to do here?
Fair question.
So here we are.
Three cultural institutions. One community center. A piano. A lot of music. A lot of ambition. And, if we’re being honest, probably a few folding chairs that have already seen more Harlem history than most of us.
But what happens when an opera company, a boys choir and an orchestra decide that their future should not live somewhere far away behind an impressive facade?
They come home.
And home, in this case, is not a metaphor.
It has an address.
That matters.
Because for years, classical music has had a little bit of a public-relations problem.
Opera can seem intimidating.
The orchestra can seem formal.
Classical music can sometimes arrive wearing a tuxedo before it has even introduced itself.
Meanwhile, Harlem has been standing here saying, “You know we like music too, right?”
Actually, we don’t just like music.
We built some of it.
Harlem has always understood that culture is not something you consume after dinner.
Culture is dinner.
It is church on Sunday.
Jazz on Saturday.
A choir rehearsal after school.
A poem scribbled on the back of a program.
A dance happening in a hallway.
A grandmother knowing every word.
A child discovering that the thing everyone told him was “not for people like us” is actually his.
That is where Booker T. Washington comes in.
The building is not simply a venue.
It is an opportunity to put culture where culture belongs.
Closer to people.
Closer to children.
Closer to the neighborhood.
And perhaps most importantly, closer to everyday life.
Because what if opera did not require a special occasion?
What if you could encounter an orchestra without first deciding you were “an orchestra person”?
What if a young boy could walk into the building and see a boys choir rehearsing and think, Wait. I could do that.
What if a teenager discovered that the person standing onstage wasn’t some mysterious creature from another universe, but someone who looked like him?
What if the arts stopped asking the community to come downtown, dress up and behave, and instead came upstairs, down the block and through the front door?
Now we’re getting somewhere.
But let’s not get carried away.
A building does not create a renaissance.
Harlem has learned that lesson before.
We have had plenty of “renaissances” that somehow required residents to leave the room.
We have watched neighborhoods get rediscovered by people who apparently had no idea we were here.
We have watched culture become branding.
We have watched history become real estate.
So when we say Harlem Renaissance Rebirth, we mean something rather specific.
Not nostalgia.
Not pretending 1925 is coming back.
And definitely not putting Langston Hughes on a tote bag and calling it a strategy.
A rebirth means building.
Building audiences.
Building artists.
Building classrooms.
Building stages.
Building relationships.
Building reasons for people to stay, return and participate.
And yes, building institutions.
That is why this season at Booker T. Washington matters.
Harlem Collective Opera is not simply looking for a place to perform.
Harlem Boys Choir is not simply looking for a rehearsal room.
Harlem Chamber Orchestra is not simply looking for somewhere to put the music stands.
And Mood Magazine is certainly not interested in producing another article announcing that something wonderful is about to happen and then disappearing until the next announcement.
We want to see what happens when all of these things exist in the same ecosystem.
Opera.
Orchestra.
Choir.
Dance.
Theatre.
Fashion.
Visual art.
Poetry.
Food.
Education.
Conversation.
A little glamour.
A little chaos.
And hopefully, a lot of people walking through the door.
Because perhaps the most radical thing we can do in the arts is make them feel normal.
Not lesser.
Not watered down.
Normal.
A child hearing an orchestra should not feel like he has entered somebody else’s world.
He should feel like he has discovered another room in his own.
A family attending an opera should not feel like they are borrowing somebody else’s culture for the evening.
They should feel like they are experiencing theirs.
And an artist should not have to leave Harlem to prove that Harlem has artists.
Which brings us back to those keys.
A new address can be a very small thing.
Unless you understand what an address represents.
A place to rehearse.
A place to teach.
A place to perform.
A place to meet.
A place to fail.
A place to try again.
A place for a kid to become an artist.
A place for an audience to become a community.
And perhaps, if we do this correctly, a place where somebody walks through the door one afternoon and discovers an entirely different version of themselves.
That’s a lot to ask of one building.
But New York has always had a weakness for unreasonable ideas.
Especially in Harlem.
So this season, we are not asking whether Booker T. Washington Community Center can become another cultural venue.
We’re asking something more interesting.
Can it become a cultural home?
Because venues have schedules.
Homes have memories.
Venues sell tickets.
Homes create belonging.
Venues host performances.
Homes create traditions.
And traditions, as Harlem knows better than almost anyone, have a funny way of becoming history.
Maybe that’s what we’re really building.
Not another season.
Not another address.
A memory.
The kind that starts with:
“Do you remember when we used to go there?”
I hope someday the answer is yes.
And I hope the story begins with a set of keys.
THE MOOD QUESTION
What makes a cultural institution a home: the building, the people inside it, or the memories a community creates there?
STAY IN THE MOOD
This season, Harlem Collective Opera, Harlem Boys Choir and Harlem Chamber Orchestra begin a new chapter at the Booker T. Washington Community Center.
But we’re thinking bigger than a new address.
We’re thinking about what happens when music, education, performance, fashion, theatre, dance, visual art and community all have a place to meet.
We’re calling it the Harlem Renaissance Rebirth.
Because Harlem does not need another revival.
It needs another chapter.
Read Mood. Listen to WHRL. Watch Mood TV. Experience the season.
Let us curate your Mood.
Mood Magazine. Mind. Body. Spirit. Culture. Harlem to the world.
