This citywide public art project asks, ‘Won’t you sing with a stranger?’

In Clark Park, buzzing with the first blush of spring, the invitation rings out.

“Would you like to sing with me? Please?”

This particular ask is made by Gabriel Bey, who’s standing in his clementine-hued suede boots next to a pair of music stands, but on Saturday afternoon, the ask is made all over the park by nearly two dozen chorale singers. They gently cajole strangers into learning a simple piece of music with them, strangers who are apprehensive, game, apologetic even.

It’s the Philadelphia debut of “Duet,” a public art project that’s part of a citywide exploration through music called Rehearsing Philadelphia. A collaboration between Drexel University and the Curtis Institute of Music, the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage-funded project challenges our understanding of music, especially classical music, the fine art that’s taught in the halls of the Curtis Institute.

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The two-week-long project celebrates the rehearsal of music, the rehearsal that has become our lives, said Ari Benjamin Meyers, the Berlin-based composer behind Rehearsing Philadelphia.

“You rehearse and rehearse and it gets better and better — this, to me, is an old-fashioned concept because we’re not living this way,” Meyers, 49, said. “We’re living in a contingency.”

The project emphasizes how music is community building — which Meyers and other participating artists said feels even more significant now, during a pandemic, during a war.

Rehearsing Philadelphia is “not just about admiring virtuosity,” said Miriam Giguere, who runs Drexel’s Department of Performing Arts and cowrote the grant for the project. “Music is culture. We’re all part of that.”

When Bey, 33, a member of Philadelphia Heritage Chorale, beckons Jonah Rosen to come sing with him, Rosen, 28, nearly turns the offer down. But they push through for a moment, learning the piece — a simple song with no words, just a set of “la’s” in different tones — before politely ending the encounter.

“They get really nervous about singing,” says Alex Hanesworth, 23, who had watched, bemused, as Rosen participated.

It’s true: “They’ve been trying to get me to do karaoke for six months,” Rosen says, but so far, Rosen’s only been singing in the house. Maybe, they say, this was another step in that direction.

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“Duet,” which has been performed across the world in cities such as Berlin and Turin, Italy, calls on that shared awkwardness, the vulnerability of singing with a stranger.

As Philadelphia Heritage Chorale singer Eduardo Luna pointed out: “We don’t have instruments. It’s just our voice.”

“Duet” creates a relationship between strangers, Meyers said, one that’s not based on the norms of polite conversation or small talk. “It’s not a conversation,” he said, “it’s a dialogue through music.”

The project has also put Curtis Institute students in dialogue with the city, one that many don’t get to explore or relate to outside of their musical study in Center City.

Mary Javian, Curtis’ chair of career studies who also wrote the grant for Rehearsing Philadelphia, said participating in the project was about being “a true member of the artistic community,” not just the classical music community. Students from the Curtis Opera Theatre were also in Clark Park Saturday afternoon, inviting passersby to sing.

“I’m just happy to see my students outside of Rittenhouse,” Javian said.

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J. Donald Dumpson, the founder and director of the Philadelphia Heritage Chorale, looked on as his choir sang duets all across the park. He was moved.

“After a time of isolation, after a time of so much loss, to be able to come into a community is actually what our purpose is,” said Dumpson, 62. “It’s a time of rebuilding. What we’re doing now is showing up for each other and music is the catalyst.”

You can catch “Duet” on April 2 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. around Independence National Historical Park; and April 9 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. along the Parkway from City Hall to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.