Seattle veterans transform trauma into beauty with Opera Veterans Choir

The music was new, and the words personal, when the Seattle Opera Veterans Choir joined the US Army Field Band Soldiers’ Chorus on stage in Seattle.

“That’s from my story!” said Sarah Blum about the lyrics she helped create.

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The lyrics are based on interviews with members of the Veterans Choir, including retired Army Medic Domenico “Nick” Minotti, “I was in Desert Storm and Desert Shield,” as well as former Air Force flyer Joel Ware IV, “I served in Vietnam. Combat,” and Blum, who is a retired Army Nurse. “Yes, I was in Vietnam during the war. I saw the worst of the worst because I was in the operating room.”

The verse Blum contributed to is about walking down a long corridor lined with patients – many of them amputees – at a San Francisco hospital where she trained before leaving for Vietnam.

“My heart didn’t let me walk down (the corridor) without engaging with them and finding out who they were, what they’d been through and getting to know them,” Blum said.

“Bless you for caring,” Ware said of her comments, “that’s a nurse’s heart.”

Much of the Seattle Opera commissioned piece, called “The Path,” focuses on the desire service members have to help, which is what prompts many of them to enlist.

Minotti’s verse in the opera, for instance, is, “I am in your midst as one who serves.” He explained, “Because it’s us, I mean, it’s who we are and what we do.”

And poignantly, “The Path” mentions the loss service members may experience when they leave active duty. The opera features a loan soprano singing, “That chapter’s over. The challenge is, I’m still that soldier.”

There are also references to the tumultuous memories that serving in a time of conflict can create. The piece doesn’t dwell on them, though clearly, even decades later, combat weighs on the veterans who spoke to KIRO News Radio’s Heather Bosch.

“We were constantly being mortared,” Blum said.

“It was very intense. There’s nothing that focuses the mind like- like realizing that you’re in mortal danger,” said Ware. Blum agreed, adding, “There were little lulls, but never a time when you felt like you were safe.”

Yet Blum, Ware and Minotti said the mere act of singing – alongside those who understand what it means to serve – helps them deal with the long-lasting memories of war.

“When I got into the room upstairs where we practice, and we started singing together, I was crying because it just felt so good to be singing with my brothers. It took away a lot of the negativity of being in the war,” Blum said.

“We’re creating something beautiful together, which takes away the ugliness.” Blum continued.

That important aspect of the Veterans Choir became apparent after Seattle Opera created the group, with help from the nonprofit “Path with Art,” to participate in a production of “The Falling and the Rising.” The opera, commissioned by the U.S. Army Field Band, was also created from interviews with active-duty soldiers and veterans.

The Seattle Opera Veterans Choir has continued to meet, giving veterans a chance to share community, music and continue to transform trauma into beauty.

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