The LOTUS Project and Frontline Arts Host Concert Addressing Veteran Mental Health

Tuesday, November 7th, 2023

Pictured Above: Path of Miracles. Photo Credit: Contributed.

NEWSROOM POST: TRENTON, NEW JERSEY

Trenton, NJ – On November 11, 2023, the Patriots Theater at the War Memorial will house over 100 singers and orchestra musicians from The LOTUS Project, The LOTUS Chorale (a new community-chorus), Trenton Children’s Chorus, and Bordentown Regional Middle School – all to honor men and women who have served in the armed forces. The LOTUS Project has chosen to partner with Frontline Arts to display artwork created on paper made from military uniforms.

Frontline Arts expresses the concept as: “All veterans have a story to tell. For too long, we have lived in a day and age where veterans tend to suppress their experiences – producing a culture of the “silent veteran.” Frontline Paper (formerly known as Combat Paper NJ) is a unique art project that offers artistic tools and professional instruction for all, providing a space to use art and writing to explore experiences, and ultimately share them publicly, all through papermaking.

Pictured Above: Musicians performing Goodall’s Eternal Light. Photo Credit: Contributed.

The concert program will include music from Band of Brothers, Howard Goodall’s Eternal Light, and feature images and stories of veterans submitted by community members. When asked why the centerpiece of the concert includes Goodall’s Requiem from 2008, Artistic Director Alicia Brozovich explained the music’s connection to poetry and concepts relevant to veterans today – including the seven members of her family that served or currently serve.

In an interview about his music, Goodall states: “For me, a modern Requiem is one that acknowledges the terrible, unbearable loss and emptiness that accompanies the death of loved ones, a loss that is not easily ameliorated with platitudes about the joy awaiting us in the afterlife. A number of recent events in our collective experience and one or two on a private level have reinforced for me the catastrophic grief that follows the loss, particularly, of young people…This was to be a Requiem for the living, a Requiem focussing on interrupted lives.”

Eternal Light has been performed over 700 times since its commission in 2008, and includes text from John McCrae’s infamous poem, “In Flander’s Fields.” This concert is the first of eight events offered by The LOTUS Project this season, including a reprise of its popular presentation of Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles, featuring artwork by local Trenton artist, Chee Bravo. This is also the first performance of the LOTUS Chorale – The LOTUS Project’s new community chorus, of which there are over 70 members. All of which are steps forward to achieve a vision for an integrated summer arts festival in the Capital City.

Tickets are available online and at the door at a suggested donation of $25/person. Patrons can reserve preferred seats up until Monday November 6 at thelotusprojectnj.org/workshop. Free parking is available in the lots adjacent to the War Memorial building.

The LOTUS Project of Trenton, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit performing arts organization based in Trenton, NJ, with a mission to craft immersive musical experiences in which we can encounter the world with new eyes and a renewed sense of wonder. The ultimate vision for The LOTUS Project is to develop a thriving summer arts festival together with the numerous artistic organizations in the Capital City.

While the name has been Frontline Arts since 2018, the spirit of social engagement has been our movement since 2011, and the ethos of community building through craft has lived through us since 1974. We live and breathe facilitating, making, observing, and participating in community arts by delivering a cohesive connective practice, which outlines the use of craft to discover commonalities and accept differences between communities, to help foster social bonds and promote positive change.