Classical ensemble takes its music to the streets
One night earlier this week, James Shearer, 45, stood up before the Vox Consort music ensemble and told them his life story: how he spent years of his life in prisons, countless nights at monolithic homeless shelters, and too many days high on drugs or alcohol.
The gathered musicians and singers -- talented, educated, and, for the most part, privileged -- nodded and listened to Shearer as he told his stories. Some of them had attended the finest music schools in the country, and it's unlikely they'd felt the sting of begging on the street. The world of classical music doesn't often overlap with that of homeless shelters.
But Vox Consort isn't your typical early-music ensemble. As it vows on its website, ''We promise not to wear tuxes or black gowns to our performances if you promise not to, either." Executive director Stephen Marc Beaudoin, 26, wants to shatter stereotypes, avoid Mozart, and make Baroque music hip for his generation -- or at least less pretentious.
And so tomorrow, Beaudoin's ensemble will try something different. It will open its second season in Boston by presenting ''Filthy/Rich," a staged concert of 17th- and 18th-century songs chosen to highlight poverty and class disparities. And Vox Consort will do it with an unusual partner: Spare Change News, a street newspaper distributed mostly by homeless people, people like Shearer.
''Within six months of going to work at Spare Change, I was off the streets," Shearer told the ensemble at a rehearsal. ''I'm still with it 13 years later. A lot of people ask me why I'm still with it. I owe my life to it. That's why."
Shearer's talk, which will also follow each performance this week, was just one way Vox Consort's members have prepared for the new season. Beaudoin also asked the performers to talk to homeless people on the streets. He urged them to study the issue. And, at one point, he had a couple of musicians dress in formal wear and march through Boston Common, where they mingled with the real-life homeless to illuminate their theme of the season.
Beaudoin likes to be provocative in this way. ''I would rather have someone be angry or have someone feel very strongly about something than have no response," he said. ''I'll take anger to indifference."
Not that anger is the response Beaudoin is looking for from audiences this season. On the contrary. The idea, he said, is to take people from the palace to the gutter, from austere church music to bawdy rounds, the full gamut of early music in two acts -- one of music written for the poor, one for the rich.
There will be costumes and props. The musicians will be in character. And as the idea came together over the summer, Beaudoin decided they needed a way to connect the disparities of the past to the disparities of the present. That's when he picked up the phone and called Spare Change editor Sam Scott.
Scott's musical background, by his own admission, leans more toward karaoke than, say, the choral works of Henry Purcell. And he's more likely to be found singing a George Thorogood song than any soaring aria. But Scott, 25, who works with the homeless every day and knows all about class disparities, understood the connection that Beaudoin was trying to make.
''My first reaction was: What a wonderful opportunity for both of us," Scott said. ''I really admire what Vox Consort is doing this season with its focus on poverty and class issues. That's obviously an issue we cover. So when he mentioned the idea of a partnership, I jumped at the chance."
The collaboration will run through March, when Vox Consort plans to stage John Gay's ''The Beggar's Opera," with the help of a few members of Boston's homeless population. In addition to Shearer's after-concert talks this week, Scott will speak to audiences at intermission. Those in attendance at ''Filthy/Rich" will receive free copies of Spare Change News, and no one -- no matter what they can pay -- will be turned away at the door.
It's not clear exactly how many homeless people will be able to attend. As Scott pointed out, many shelters require that people check in at a certain time, keeping them off the streets at night. But Shearer said he expected some to show up. ''If it sounds interesting," he told the inquiring ensemble this week, ''they'll be there."
Nothing would please Beaudoin or Scott more. The two men have different musical tastes, but what they want is the same: a frank discussion of the issues. And both of their organizations could benefit from the attention.
Spare Change, a bimonthly nonprofit newspaper, has struggled recently to stay afloat after more than a decade in Boston. Vox Consort, on the other hand, is just beginning to make a name for itself in a city already rich with early-music ensembles such as Boston Baroque and the Handel and Haydn Society.
''I run this thing out of my backpack, basically," Beaudoin said. ''I'm not kidding."
But don't get Beaudoin started. While he would like to be better financed, he doesn't want to be like the other ensembles. He wants to be exciting, bold. And he wants to look out across the audience this week and see people who are most comfortable when they are not wearing tuxedos.
''We're piddly," he said. ''We're tiny. We're a blip on the screen. But hopefully, we'll be more than a blip soon." 