JAVS Summer 2021

The Eclectic

We Shall George Taylor’s video project and thoughts on a career as a Black violist in America Interviewed by Leanne Darling and Gregory Williams Violist

On July 29th, 2020, George Taylor, Professor of viola at the Eastman School of Music, released a video titled We Shall . It was the culmination of his statement in response to George Floyd’s death and the efforts of the Black Lives Matter movement towards civil rights and justice for police brutality. The video is a collaboration between Professor Taylor and his students from the past thirty years, performing an arrangement of the spiritual “We Shall Overcome” for many violas within the image of a large tree. You can view it here on YouTube. The video begins with Taylor playing the melody, then the tree comes into view, where students appear each playing parts of the arrangement all recorded remotely. The music becomes more chaotic as the tree begins to “burn.” Taylor appears again playing the melody, and is joined by his students singing the spiritual, ending with a quote by Rep. John Lewis. The video is 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the time George Floyd was being strangled. Professor Taylor spoke with former students Leanne Darling and Gregory Williams in January about the experience. I woke up like everyone else did to the events that led up to the death of George Floyd. Watching murder on your screen, and the ensuing epiphany that the nation seemed to have was not new to me. It was something that I knew and was familiar with for many years. I felt that I had spent sixty-five years trying to become anonymous, trying not to make my color or my race matter, so that I could be a violist and a teacher, and not some Black existential threat to the people around me. There is a price you pay for that anonymity when you What was the initial inspiration for the video We Shall— where and how did you get the idea?

walk into most environments, and tripley so in your work environment of thirty-five years.

The microaggressions that wear on your psyche: touring with the Ciompi quartet, being on receiving lines and having people walk by you to get to the cellist. When I used to smoke, going out to have a cigarette at Eastman and having the security guard check on you saying someone had reported a strange Black man stalking at the back of the building. People running from you, or being tracked in a department store. Being called a “nigger” by an irate violist in a quartet rehearsal at Aspen, and, being told my violin playing was favorable because I did not sound like a “Black violinist.” And the list goes on and on. At that moment in time, the pain of sixty-four years being a Black person in this country came tumbling down on me. There seemed to be an activism that was current and vital and part of a younger generation. I felt left behind, and that my voice was no longer viable because of my self-inflicted isolation and anonymity. I had lost any right to have a say in current events. With the growing maturation of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the awareness and activism it was creating, I was left feeling as if there was a bus that was taking off from the station and it had left me behind. So there were a lot of tears, there was a lot of soul searching, and once I worked myself out of that psychological hole, came the questions: how can you be of service? How can you reclaim your voice? How can you help other people whom you love, find a small voice in these matters? I began to scan my experience. I came of age during the Civil Rights Era, so I watched the King speech at the March on Washington live on TV.

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 37, 2021 Online Issue

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