UND Music + UND Law = ‘Voices of Justice’

Concert on Sunday — a collaboration between music and law students — will explore themes of civic duty, legal rights

On Sunday, Feb. 23, at 4:30 p.m., the stately walls of the VandeWalle Courtroom at the UND School of Law will echo with song, not argument. That’s because the courtroom will be the scene of “Voices of Justice,” a concert billed as a “collaborative musical drama” and one that represents a cooperative effort undertaken by UND’s Department of Music and School of Law.

The performance will explore legal themes through music and includes participation from both music and law students. It also will feature work by guest artist Jodi Goble.

The idea emerged from the Alice T. Clark Faculty Mentoring Program, where assistant professor of voice Justin Montigne and assistant professor of law Dan Lewerenz first met. During their cohort’s visit to the School of Law, Montigne made a stop at the VandeWalle Courtroom to sing and “test the acoustics” of the courtroom.

“I was in the courtroom and just sang a few bars to see what it sounded like,” Montigne recalled. “It had great acoustics, and I thought, we’re doing something here.”

From there, Montigne devised a concept for a semi-staged performance that incorporated students from both disciplines, using the VandeWalle Courtroom’s jury box.

“The singers will be seated in the jury box in the courtroom, and they’ll just pop up individually in their songs,” Montigne said. Audience participation will be included. “There are several songs for which we will invite the audience to sing along.”

The program is set to feature “Twelve Chairs,” a composition by Jodi Goble based on poetry by U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Rita Dove. Goble, a faculty member at Iowa State University, is a guest artist in residence at UND this month and will lead master classes on composition and collaboration.

“Twelve Chairs” will serve as the centerpiece of the program. The song cycle consists of 13 solos, which explore the inner thoughts of 12 individuals summoned to serve as jurors.

In between songs, law students will perform short monologues that they have written, providing context and an informed legal perspective to the performance.

The subject matter of “Twelve Chairs” gives music and law students alike a chance to explore themes of legal rights and civic duty, said Montigne, who worked with Lewerenz to curate a program that would emphasize these themes.

“Anne Christopherson and I worked with several School of Law faculty to refine the concepts of law that this concert would focus on,” he said. “We’ve built a program that covers several broader thematic areas of law and rights — the Bill of Rights is something we’ve focused a lot on.”

Lewerenz also provided historical background using foundational texts in American democracy such as “The Federalist Papers” and the works of French philosopher and historian Alexis de Tocqueville.

“In ‘The Federalist Papers’ and the writings of de Tocqueville, jury service is portrayed as a great equalizer, a pillar of democracy that empowers citizens to dispense justice,” he said. “The Supreme Court calls it both a duty and a privilege. But jurors themselves? More often than not, they see it as a burden—something to avoid if they can.

“I wanted to provide historical context that reflects all of these perspectives, because in reality, jury duty is all three: a duty, a privilege and a burden.”

Lewerenz said he hopes that the collaboration will be the start of an effort to make the School of Law more inviting and accessible to the wider campus community.

“A law school is always going to be a little bit of a silo on a university campus,” he explained. “But anything that we can do that introduces law students to other students on campus, that brings other people into the law school who aren’t here on a regular basis, I think, is a win, win.”

Similarly, the event serves as continuation of Montigne’s efforts to encourage students in other disciplines on campus to raise their voices in song.

“We were in the history department and collaborating with them last spring, and this spring, we’re partnering with law,” he said. “We hope to continue these kinds of collaborations.

“Singers can sing about anything, and it’s our job to sing about everything. We want to use our voices to advocate and illuminate. I think it’s great to be able to cross boundaries and share our ideas and talents with each other.”

The concert will be live-streamed as well as held in person in the VandeWalle Courtroom. A pre-concert talk featuring students, faculty and Goble will begin at 4:10 p.m.

After the concert, attendees are invited to join a Q&A with Goble.

UND’s Student Organization Funding Agency is supporting Goble’s residency through a grant to the UND Student National Association of Teachers of Singing. Popplers Music in Grand Forks will lend and deliver the piano that Goble and UND students will play in the VanderWalle Courtroom.

For more details, including streaming info and ticket availability, visit the concert’s listing on the UND events calendar.