'World Anthem' at Graduation Sparks Anger

[John Harrell <johnbharrell@yahoo.com>]

'World Anthem' at Graduation Sparks Anger

Scripps-McClatchy Western Service/RockyMountainNews.com
http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=ANTHEM-06-07-02&cat=LS
6/07/02
Todd Hartman

Debate over anthem surprises principal

By TODD HARTMAN
Scripps-McClatchy Western Service
June 07, 2002

DENVER - Poudre High School's decision to play the World anthem for
its graduation ceremony sparked an angry reaction from a parent who
wanted to hear the national anthem and stirred a dust-up on talk radio
this week.

Gail Wagner, whose daughter graduated May 24, wrote a letter to the
school principal, the district superintendent and the Denver Rocky
Mountain News calling the anthem "an insipid little song about a world
of peace and love" and an insult to America.

She said it took the place of the national anthem.

It did not, said Poudre High Principal Sandra Lundt.

Lundt said she was surprised to find the decision scolded on Mike
Rosen's KOA talk show and Peter Boyles' KHOW show Thursday
morning. Lundt said the Fort Collins school has never played the
national anthem at its graduation.

"This was never meant to take the place of the national anthem,"
Lundt said. "It's an anthem that really celebrates every nation."

Wagner's husband, Fred, and daughter, Erin, also opposed the
playing of the world anthem. Erin said she was surprised "The Star
Spangled Banner" wasn't played.

"It didn't make much sense," Erin said. "We live in America, so they
should have played it. I guess I would say I was offended."

Lundt said the school's senior class council, a group of 15 to 20
students, participated in the decision to play the world anthem. The
school's orchestra, band and choir teamed to perform the piece.

The senior class council "was very excited about the opportunity,"
Lundt said, noting that one of the people who helped promote broader
performance of the anthem, Ed Goodman, is a 1973 graduate of
Poudre High.

The world anthem was conceived in 1996 and completed by 2000. The
idea behind the piece, according to the Web site
www.worldanthem.org, is this: "We believe there is a wonderful way to
bring a message of hope, healing, peace and unification to all people
through the universal language of music ... to give the world a gift, to
bring about a symbol for peace and a common spirit of trust toward the
idea of one people, one world."

Its creation, even those involved acknowledge, borders on the bizarre.
Music from the anthems of every country in the world were combined
in a computer. Using musicology software, a blended creation
emerged. The same technique was used to produce the lyrics,
according to Goodman.

"This is not two bars of 'The Star Spangled Banner,' then a bar of 'O
Canada,'" Goodman said.

"It's more like if you took all the melodies, harmonies, rhythms and
tempos and somehow were able to average them. ... It's very, very
sophisticated; it took years of work to accomplish."

This means, Goodman said, that the piece wasn't composed by any
one person or any one nation. "The point of it was to have one song
that all nations could share," he said.

The piece has a significant history in Colorado. It was heard for the
first time at the Denver Millennium Celebration on Dec. 31, 2000, at
the stroke of midnight in conjunction with fireworks, according to
historians of the anthem. In November 2001, the Colorado Symphony
Orchestra provided the first live performance of the piece.

Goodman said that even Air Force's Band of the Rockies is taken with
the piece and arranging its own version. It's slated to be played at an
upcoming global peace conference in Croatia and at a ceremony
celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Peace Corps this summer.

The Wagners are not impressed.

"No matter how much the principal gushed over the privilege of being
one of the first to hear this piece performed, we did not feel privileged
or find it inspirational, heartwarming or moving," Gail Wagner wrote to
the News.


     (Contact Todd Hartman of the Rocky Mountain News at
           hartmant(at)RockyMountainNews.com.)



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