“What if the walls between us were made of music?”

Writing about his Mending Wall commission, Martin Bresnick asked, “What if the walls between us were made of music?” These clips of quarantined Italians singing and playing from their balconies offer a moving demonstration. See a full playlist at La Repubblica: “Coronavirus, nelle città deserte si canta insieme alle finestre: l’effetto è struggente”

“To have a home is not a favour”: Keorapetse Kgositsile on the refugee crisis

In his Mending Wall commission, composer George Lewis sets text by the late South African poet and activist Keorapetse Kgositsile (1938–2018), who once described the boundary between poetry and music as “artificial” and “practically criminal.” In this 2009 video, Kgositsile reads his “Anguish Longer Than Sorrow.”