The Charlotte Symphony Orchestra and Queens University students recently united for "Words + Music: From Darkness to Light." The event paired original student poetry with classical music, fostering a powerful community dialogue centered on healing, shared grief and artistic expression.
A collaboration between Queens University of Charlotte and the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra celebrated its fifth year this October for student poetry to be set into motion alongside classical performance pieces, creating a harmonic dialogue between literature and music.
Community members gathered on Oct. 28 in the Sarah Belk Gambrell Center for the Arts and Civic Engagement for “Words + Music: From Darkness to Light.” The performance paired original spoken word poetry with live orchestral works.
A Living Tradition Rooted in the Community
“The Charlotte Symphony’s relationship with Queens goes back decades, from performances on campus beginning in the 1970s to the contributions of Dr. George Stegner, who chaired the music department and provided program notes for the Symphony for nearly 40 years,” said Charlotte Symphony Orchestra President and CEO David Fisk. “This history reflects a shared belief in the value of creating opportunities for students to engage with live music as both performers and listeners, strengthening the college community through the arts.”
Looking toward the future, Fisk expressed enthusiasm for continuing to build on this foundation alongside 鶹Ƶ.
“For generations, this campus has been one of Charlotte’s homes for the arts,” said 鶹Ƶ President Connie Ledoux Book. “Just last month, we pledged that we’ll continue to be an intellectual, cultural and civic convener for the city and to provide leadership as a partner. Tonight is the embodiment of that pledge in action.”
From Concept to Stage: Reimagining Classical Masterpieces
Months before the house lights dimmed, the creative process began through close coordination between faculty and conductors. Queens University Associate Professor Sarah Creech shared a call for submissions around broad emotional themes like chaos, grief, loss, remembrance, transformation and healing.
“Grief, and the way we explore it, is different based on where we are in our life journey, but the heaviness of it is something that audiences will connect with no matter who’s listening,” Creech said.
Emily Allison ’28, a double major in creative writing and professional writing and rhetoric, returned to the collaboration for her second time after performing during her first year at Queens.
Opening the evening, Allison performed her poem “ordinary things,” which began as a flash nonfiction essay in Creech’s class before evolving into lyrical verse.
“It started as a nonfiction essay about sitting quietly in a moment of happiness while simultaneously wondering how to think about grief and loving people,” Allison said. “Eventually, you realize you will have grief of this moment ending, grief of losing people and grief of things that haven’t even happened yet.”
For Charlotte-native Maya Baker ’30, a creative writing and literary studies major, stepping onto the stage marked a brand-new milestone. Baker wrote and performed “Kaleidoscope,” which weaves together memories of her upbringing with her mother and grandmother, the passing of her father and the moments that bring her joy.
Supported in the audience by her family and drawing on a lifelong appreciation for classical music nurtured by a cousin who plays the violin, Baker discovered the bravery required to share her authentic voice aloud.
“The biggest thing for me has been being brave enough to read my own work out loud,” Baker shared. “Stepping on stage has taught me to use my voice and be more willing to share and be vulnerable.”
For senior creative writing major Nolan Kehrli ’27 from Hampton, South Carolina, returning for his second year as a performer meant shifting focus from last year’s theme of love to grapple with this year’s exploration of grief and loss. Kehrli’s poem, “Muscle Memory,” was written about his cat, Grim, who passed away around Christmas last year.
“One of the things I learned from this experience was that there’s no one way to talk about loss,” said Kehrli. “It’s a thing that separates us from one world and another but also can bring people together.”
Poetry as Collective Healing
Each student credited Creech with providing invaluable mentorship, stepping back to let peers workshop and uplift one another while ensuring their authentic voices remained uncompromised.
This year’s collaboration carried profound emotional resonance. Navigating a semester marked by campus loss and remembrance, the student poets turned to art as a vehicle for shared healing.
“It’s been really beautiful to watch my peers use the art of poetry as a way to work through grief and to share it with an audience,” said Allison. “It makes us feel less alone and is proof that poetry can be collaborative and healing.”
Kehrli agreed. “Music and poetry, grief and recovery is one of the weirdest and most beautiful ways people can come together,” he said.
Looking Forward
For the leaders who brought the evening to life, the collaboration is about more than a single evening of performance, but an investment in the next generation of creators. Charlotte Symphony Orchestra Resident Conductor Christopher James Lees sees the partnership as a powerful way to bridge classical music with contemporary voices.
“We’re all very familiar with that quote attributed to Hans Christian Andersen that said, ‘When words fail, music speaks,'” Lees said. “But this collaboration seeks to once again explore what the relationship might be like between music that speaks and poetry that sings, and the idea that works of art that have been with us for so long can inspire a new generation of individual thoughts and feelings.”
