Hello. My name is Dr. Eugene Rogers and I'm the Director of Choral Activities in the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. Today, I'd like to speak with you about the role of music and the arts as activism and as seen in Joel Thompson's Seven Last Words of the Unarmed. The power of music to change a mood, to shift an atmosphere, to motivate, and bring about change in our world goes back to the beginning of humanity. I believe that great art should do more than entertain. Great art should provoke thought. Joel Thompson's powerful work, The Seven Last Words of the Unarmed does just that. Composed as a way to process his own feelings and emotions about the senseless lost lives of unarmed black people, Joel's work is a perfect example of how the arts can be an important part of bringing about political and social change. The Seven Last Words of the Unarmed is a multi-movement work that uses the last words and correspondences of seven African-American men who lost their lives at the hands of police and authority figures. The piece was originally premiered by myself and the Michigan Men's Glee Club in 2015, and has now become almost a classical music theme song of the Black Lives Matter movement today as we process the lost lives of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and many others. The last words used in this piece are those of Kenneth Chamberlain, Trayvon Martin, Amadou Diallo, Michael Brown, Oscar Grant, John Crawford, and Eric Garner. Their words are short, direct, and haunting. Such words as, I can't breathe, I don't have a gun, stopped shooting, it's not real, and so forth are all a part of this work. In addition, you will hear each word set to a different style of music, which highlights the dramatic characteristics of each story, each life, and each of their words. The piece opens with a funeral-like, almost haunting beginning in the piano, that returns at the conclusion of the work, and includes the famous medieval tune that says, "The armed man is to be feared." This is followed by the death-like musical chase or a fugue in the second movement, to the words of Trayvon Martin, "What are you following me for?" The almost hopeful musical theater-like ballad of the third movement depicts the words of Amadou Diallo's mom, "I'm going to college". Other highlights include the setting of Oscar Grant's words, "You shot me" to staggered shouts by the choir, paired with powerful chest hits, imitating the shots. While the other members of choir hum in a mournful manner, the armed man musical material. The piece concludes with music depicting a fixation to the words of Eric Garner, "I can't breathe" eerily foreshadowing George Floyd's words of 2020. This powerful work is meant to invoke thought about their lives, but also about the need for police reform, and the end of systemic racism in our country. I'm reminded of the Procter & Gamble choice video, that words and feelings are not enough. Let the powerful work by Joel Thompson inspire you to take action to create the world we all want to live in. Read, listen, donate, plan, march, vote, speak out, step in, and step up.