Ground Zero Event (Saturday before Mother’s Day)

Seattle is 18 miles from the largest store of nuclear weapons in the world, at Naval Base Kitsap - Bangor.

Each Mother’s Day, the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action organizes a protest against nuclear weapons at the gate of the naval base, and Seattle Peace Chorus Action Ensemble joins this effort to help bring awareness to the danger the these weapons create. Even so, this should be a joyful, hopeful event. In 2022, it was on Saturday 7 May; in 2023 it was on Saturday 13 May.

Seattle Peace Chorus Action Ensemble sings after 1:00 pm, and has been invited to stay through all of the rest of the activities involving the protest against nuclear weapons until 4:00 pm.

Dale and Sue singing

In the interest of COVID safety, our rehearsals will be OUTDOORS, at Gas Works Park, where we’ll have plenty of room to spread out while still hearing each other -- either under a big shelter roof if it’s raining, or out in the open if it’s not. Either way, the outdoor air flow (plus space for distancing) will allow us to sing unmasked without compromising safety. Given our chilly Seattle springtime, we’ll all need to bundle up for this, but it’s worth it! Let’s all get back to singing activist songs for peace & justice!

As those of you who’ve sung with AE before are aware, we have two types of repertoire that we prepare for various events:

  • “March Songs” — these are popular peace-and-justice singalong songs that are easy for anyone to pick up & sing with us… often augmented with custom lyrics geared for a specific issue or event. We call them “march songs” because we like to sing them while parading down the streets at protest marches for peace & social justice issues, while handing out lyric sheets to any of our fellow marchers who are inspired to join in & sing along. But we also sing them at rallies & meetings of social justice organizations, when they want us to lead their gathered participants in song… like we’ll be doing alongside the entrance to the Bangor Submarine Base, during the Ground Zero event.
  • “Stage Songs” — these are choral arrangements of peace & social justice-themed songs, usually in 4-part harmony, that we perform for the crowd at rallies & other gatherings — often to inspire the audience to action on a particular topic. As AE music director, Doug Balcom has composed and/or arranged many such stage songs over the years, for a wide variety of issues.

The repertoire for our two upcoming rehearsals will include both types of songs:

  • A set of 11 classic AE singalong “march songs,” tailored to the issue of the calling out the madness of nuclear weapons. You’re probably already familiar with a lot of these songs, and the rest are very easy to pick up — we’ll be singing them mostly in unison, with volunteer harmonies welcome but optional. Here’s a link to the lyric sheet we’ll be singing from (designed to be printed two-sided in landscape mode, and folded in half to make a 4-page booklet): https://1drv.ms/b/s!AlbaEBZPmA-DhsFv0qWL_jD9ijOduw
  • A brand-new “stage song” about nuclear weapons, called “The Lucky Ones.” At a recent planning meeting for our Ground Zero event, the AE Coordinators threw out a suggestion that Doug should write a new anti-nuke song for the occasion — and he took it as a personal challenge. His songwriter brain started churning on it, and wouldn’t let me rest until he’d created a tune and 5 verses worth of lyrics. From there, he proceeded to arrange it for 4-part choir, and tonight it’s hot-off-the-presses and ready to go — including a full SATB choral score with guitar accompaniment, as well as compact (2-page) scores for each choral part. Our intention is to perform the “world premiere” of this song at the Ground Zero gathering, as a musical offering right before their keynote address. Here are links to the lyrics, scores and audio files, so you can start learning the song at home if you’d like:

    If this new choral work seems too daunting for you to learn, don’t worry — we’ll have experienced singers to lead the way when we’re rehearsing & performing it, and you can participate in the Ground Zero event even if you skip doing the “stage song.” We’d love to have you with us regardless — the majority of our singing there will be the singalong songs at the Bangor gate… with many other Ground-Zero-affiliated peace activists singing along with us. It’s always fun & inspiring.

    We greatly look forward to seeing you and singing with you for peace & social justice, carrying forth our regularly active intent to implement the SPC mission. If you have questions, email ae@seattlepeacechorus.org, call Dale at 612-327-6515, or Sue at 651-503-3402.

    Doug at Ground Zero Margarita at Ground Zero Nikki and Dee at Ground Zero