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MASS: Community and Collaboration
Posted October 21, 2026
MASS: Community and Collaboration
By Shana Oshiro
Photo: Smiling Street Chorus L to R: Brandon Shaw McKnight, Elizabeth Mondragon, Ashlyn Rock, Louisa Waycott, Laura Corina-Sanders, David Breen, Mia Athey, Teresa Ferrara, Shana Oshiro, Andrew Adelsberger, Opal Clyburn-Miller, Robin McGinness, Aaron Cates, Eros Da Artiste, Alan Naylor, Deacon Smith.
Near midnight on February 1st of this year, news came that the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts would likely close for two years. Witnessing this announcement felt like learning of a beloved elder passing away all too soon.
In search of hope, it occurred to me that the grief in arts lovers throughout the area might draw them to arts organizations dedicated to boldly authentic programming. Bernstein’s MASS came to mind as the historical piece whose premiere opened the Kennedy Center in 1971.
The living legacy of this piece radically expanded my musical and spiritual world in 2008 when I first performed it with Marin Alsop and the late Jubilant Sykes, with the Morgan State University Choir. Hope and memory gave birth to the vision that artists and organizations could join forces to declare once again, as Leonard Bernstein himself proclaimed,
"This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before."
The seizure of the Kennedy Center reflects the administration’s unequivocally antagonistic posture against the pluralistic ethos that is endemic to American artistry and consciousness. This attack on the soulful core of our nation’s identity would inevitably rouse the spirits of those of us who feel called to embody and protect it.
While it is true that much of our cultural arts system is absorbed in a classist and capitalist paradigm, artists will not stop making art under pressure. Artists are notoriously inclined to adapt our modes of expression in response to oppression.
The morning after that night’s announcement, I reached out to my friend of over 20 years who shared MASS with me— Dr. Brian Bartoldus, Artistic Director of Handel Choir of Baltimore. Indeed the blessing (despite some curses) of the small world of the arts is in the lifelong friendships that form the foundation of our collegial relationships.
It is in the safety of these intimate spaces where we can share dreams and link arms as we take our leaps of faith. Brian was honest with me in doubting that it was feasible to produce such a work in so short a time, but that if such a collaborative network and project were to exist, he would support and participate however he could.
In the span of roughly the next 48 hours, I was able to connect with several trusted arts leaders and artists, as well as a devoted arts supporter in my network who pledged $10,000.00 toward the idea– at which point the dream became a project. The vision made its way through the grapevine, and we gathered over a Zoom meeting within the week to formalize the proposal. Within an hour and a half, we’d agreed to co-present one weekend of performances around the Kennedy Center’s 55th anniversary. We dubbed our new collaboration Bernstein: MASS–This Shall Be Our Reply.
Photo: Shana Oshiro with members of the Street Chorus.
This endeavor required an unorthodox structural agreement, wherein all the participating artists would be agreeing to a putative fee with the understanding that the compensation would depend upon the success of our fundraising efforts. Choral organizations throughout the region were recruited to extend invitations to their singers to volunteer to fill the Choir. Close friends and supporters of participating organizations– including CityDance Conservatory which prepared excellent student dancers for the production; IN Series Opera which served as the central artistic platform and fiscal sponsor; and Georgetown Chorale whose artistic director, Heather Adelsberger, served as the conductor and led the musical preparations– helped us raise funds by hosting soirees where members of the Street Chorus cast performed the music of Bernstein as part of the presentation to invite the attendees to support our visionary project.
Photo: Eros Da Artiste with members of the Street Chorus.
By July, the full cast, orchestra, and choral group were established–over 15 organizations that had come together to prepare and manifest the miraculous performance delivered September 4th and 5th at Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, DC. The space was filled with audience members from intersecting and extended communities, with a staging concept by Timothy Nelson that accommodated the challenges of a sanctuary as opposed to a theater. All were immersed in the admonishment and examination of a society whose souls are tragically estranged from its sacraments. Volunteers from the music community– performers and supporters alike– arrived with protest signs reading, AGNUS DEI, QUI TOLLIS PECATTA MUNDI, DONA NOBIS PACEM and A PAX ON ALL OUR HOUSES–which they wieldedfor the cacophonously sacreligious unravelling of the Agnus Dei.
Photo: "Pax On All Our Houses” sign held by Howard Spencer, local volunteer.
In the finale, “Almighty Father,” the full company joined hands with the audience, forming authentic and spiritually inspired blessing and prayer for our communities, our nation, and the world–connecting everyone in that living sanctuary we created for the arts.
MASS enthusiasts and first time experiencers alike glowed with praise for this collaborative production, calling it impressive, transformative, and even life-changing. In a time that has devastated and demoralized so many, people left the performance feeling the hope and love they’d feared was lost.
The arts have been increasingly subject to financial scarcity and relative devaluation in our country since the losses of the Great Depression, the political censorship of the McCarthy era, and the financial cuts to education. For the arts to sustain its capacity for responsiveness, authenticity, and innovation in a climate where these conditions have intensified– collaborations are more than possible. They are necessary.
MASS–This Shall Be Our Reply served as a successful testing ground for the viability of artistic collaborations that can protect the integrity of the arts; connect people from various organizations, communities, and perspectives; and amplify the realities in the world that clamor for our shared attention and mutual support.
Artists, supporters, and new connections from this production have now joined hands for the next phase to build upon this experience to establish a network that sustains these connections among arts organizations. Through this collaborative network, we see that we can integrate relationships with humanitarian advocacy groups that expands into an island of coherence for those of us working to protect the beautiful world of humanity, life, and mystery that the arts endow to our awareness as a society.
"If we are really serious about communicating with one another, about knowing ourselves through our neighbors– in short, about peaceful civilization– then we can never overestimate the good that comes from artistic communication. When we touch one another through music, we are touching the heart, the mind, and the spirit, all at once."
-Leonard Bernstein
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Shana Oshiro is a soprano, board-certified music therapist, and producer based in Maryland and Washington, D.C. She received her BFA in Vocal Performance at Morgan State University and her Master’s degree in Music Therapy at Shenandoah Conservatory. She is also the cofounder and Executive Director of HALO, Incorporated using barbershop singing as a vehicle for dialogue about racism in their community music therapy program, Race and #RealTalk.