Bernstein’s principle thrives when musicians convert ideals into concrete acts. Commissions that grapple with injustice, benefit concerts like One Love Manchester (2017), and open rehearsals that welcome traumatized communities all make beauty public and useful. Programming that pairs lament with works of renewal guides audiences from darkness toward orientation. Even symbolic gestures—Bernstein’s Ode to Freedom performance of Beethoven’s Ninth in Berlin (1989), changing Freude to Freiheit—show how art can name a historical turn. Thus the reply becomes actionable: organize, rehearse, perform, and repeat, until devotion outpaces the noise of harm. [...]
