While working as an artist in residence for the City of Boston in 2015, violinist Shaw Pong Liu created Code Listen, an ongoing, collaborative effort that sought to build relationships between the Boston Police, teen artists, survivors of violence and the families of victims of homicides, and musicians. Code Listen describes itself as “a listening-centered project using the transformative power of creative music and performance to support healing and dialogue on violence, racism and policing…, an ensemble and memorial project that brings together members of the Boston Police Department, homicide survivors, teen artists, and community organizations….”
Michael Brown had been shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri the year before, leading to a crisis in which allegations of police brutality and concern about police killings of unarmed men of color were answered by efforts within organizations such as the Boston Police Department to build police community relationships by initiating dialogue with those they served.
The original project had two components that eventually merged: members of the Boston Police Department who were musicians and artists, and mothers and siblings of victims of gun violence. Liu explains, their efforts were “about coming together through music-making and dialogue to try to build very direct, person-to-person relationships between folks who don’t always get a chance to do that kind of relationship building.” Eventually both parts merged into a single project.
Violinist and Chinese erhu player Liu graduated from U.C. Berkeley, and then obtained a Masters in Violin Performance from New England Conservatory of Music, where she participated in NEC’s community outreach program. While in college, she had realized that she did not want to limit herself to impacting the lives of people only through appearances in concert halls, but instead to follow her vision of music as “a powerful healer to bring people together and create space for reflection.” Liu explains, “I’m really interested in the power of listening as an actual skill that we need in music as well as a social societal skill for communication and listening and how those two things can support each other.”
Shaw Pong Liu is the recipient of numerous grants and awards and performs at the highest artistic level, both on her own and with a range of ensembles that include the Silkroad Ensemble.
Sources: http://www.codelisten.org/, https://www.tbf.org/news-and-insights/reports/2021/dec/2021-annual-report/shaw-pong-liu-transcript-2021ar, https://www.nefa.org/news/code-listen-30-dialogue-and-healing-through-music
For more information:
Shaw Pong Liu http://www.shawpong.com/about
Code Listen http://www.codelisten.org/
Shaw Pong Liu, Violinist (The Boston Foundation, The 2021 Annual Report) https://www.tbf.org/news-and-insights/reports/2021/dec/2021-annual-report/shaw-pong-liu-transcript-2021ar
Dialogue and Healing Through Music (New England Foundation for the Arts) https://www.nefa.org/news/code-listen-30-dialogue-and-healing-through-music
Shaw Pong Liu (Silkroad Ensemble) https://www.silkroad.org/artists-shaw-pong-liu
Through the Walls (Shaw Pong Liu, Silkroad Ensemble) https://www.silkroad.org/seeds-2020-through-the-walls