BRISTOL – For the first time, Wesleyan composer Neely Bruce’s “The Bill of Rights: Ten Amendments in Eight Motets” will have a multimedia component when it’s performed for a Bristol benefit concert this month.
Neely said that New Haven photographer Andrew Hogan “has a really beautiful” photo essay that will accompany the piece in a benefit for longtime journalist Steve Collins, whose Christmas Eve resignation draw national attention to his publisher’s lack of ethics.
Neely said the 4 p.m., Sunday, April 17 concert at the historic Prospect United Methodist Church will be “a fabulous, mixed-media event,” Neely said.
In addition to Hogan’s photographic essay that includes both his own work and that of others, the concert will feature a choir of local and regional singers backed by an instrumental ensemble. Both Neely and Collins will speak briefly beforehand.
Bruce said he wanted to do the free-will offering concert in Bristol because of the press freedom issues related to Collins’ resignation from The Bristol Press to protest unethical conduct by the paper’s publisher.
“I wanted to do this for Steve because his First Amendment rights and have been violated big time,” Neely said.
“A lot of people’s rights are being violated all the time in this country,” Neely said. “Read the Bill of Rights. You can’t exercise your rights if you don’t know what they are.”
Bruce said he decided to set the First Amendment to music after reading a 2004 Knight Foundation study that found half the nation’s youth had no problem with the government censoring news.
“The magnificent rhythms of the text were so captivating, and so much fun to set to music, that I decided to set the entire Bill of Rights” to music, he said.
Bruce said he wrote his composition “in the style of William Billings, America’s first great composer and a contemporary of the Founders.”
“The music I have written is tuneful and memorable. I already know that if you sing it you will become more and more aware of the Bill of Rights, and the condition is ongoing, perhaps permanent,” he said.
“If you sing a text, especially when you are young, you will remember it for life,” Bruce said.
His goal, he said, “is to have every singer in the United States sing this piece. I’ve got a long way to go, but the performance in Bristol will be Number 24. One step at a time.”
Collins quit in December after 22 years covering government and politics for The Bristol Press. He is now freelancing for CT News Junkie, an online news site, and recently wrote an e-book on what a Donald Trump presidency might be like.
A small reception will follow the 99 Summer St. concert, which is sponsored in part by Wesleyan University, the Yarde family and C.V. Mason Insurance Agency.