Our Name is Mud
Our Name is Mud, Greenwich and 7th Avenue, 11/20/01
Photograph by Martha Cooper
Expression – what does it mean to express the experience of our lives?  For some, expression may take the form of destruction, in violence, war, and terror.  For others, expression is in the creation of symbols and representations, in words, sound, movement, color and shape – what we call art.

Chalk Drawings
Union Square 9/13/01
Photograph by Martha Cooper
Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, New Yorkers flooded the streets of their city to place poems, messages, artworks and candles in makeshift shrines and memorials at Ground Zero, Union Square, and other public places.  They spontaneously exercised their freedom of expression in a way necessary to their grief, sorrow, and need to DO something.  In turning to the mediums of the arts to make sense of their thoughts and feelings, they chose creation in the midst of violent destruction.  The significance of this expression, for the arts and humanity, is unmistakable.

Missing Tile
Our Name is Mud,
Greenwich and 7th Avenue, 11/20/01
Photograph by Martha Cooper
The music contained in the CD Race for the Sky offers a selection of songs, American songs by American composers, that reflect the themes that surrounded us all after 9/11 – war, peace, love, loss, tragedy, redemption, New York and others.  In addition to the marvelous setting of the three 9/11 poems found on the NYC city streets that is the song cycle Race for the Sky, the variety of styles from classical art song to musical theatre standard that comprise the rest of the CD capture these themes in ways that range from arrangements of folk tunes to transcendent renderings of complex poetry.
Jerry Garcia Guitar
Union Square, 9/22/01
Photograph by Martha Cooper

The journey of Race for the Sky has been very meaningful.  It has given me hope during a time of crisis and despair.  I hope you will find your glimpse into this journey a rewarding one. 
Thank you for remembering with me the remarkable acts of expression and creation on the New York City streets after September 11, 2001.

Lisa Radakovich Holsberg
2005 / 2016