What is the role and responsibility of the living?

It’s remarkable to be back in the city of Chicago. I was born here and so much of my family’s history resides in the architecture and spirit of the places here.

My father often talked about his love for St. Peter’s Cathedral. I pass by it every day on my way to Lyric Opera of Chicago and it’s been so moving.

I’m working on an opera for them, with a libretto by Anna Deavere Smith and directed by Yuval Sharon. Renee Fleming brought us all together. This photograph contains them all and so much history and power and change.

Left to right: Renee Fleming, Yuval Sharon, Anna Deavere Smith, and DBR

I just released a new single, They Still Want to Kill Us, in collaboration with J’Nai Bridges. This work speaks to an American atrocity in the city of Tulsa, and each week, it seems another tragedy unfolds in another American city with another mass shooting and another round of death and terror.

All of this to let you know, that as an artist, I can’t be a first responder, but can I be second or third? As an artistic field, can we respond to tragedy in a way that is empathetic, healing and offers hope?

I want to go to the places that require breath and space and life and sound and music and meditation. Can our work and creative, cosmic imaginations bring us together in some meaningful way? I don’t know but I’ll keep dreaming and doing.

What is the role and responsibility of the living in a time of trial and terror?

DBR