Fight Hate & Prejudice Through the Performing Arts

Update: On Monday, June 17, WCPO aired a special broadcast "Hope After Hate," which showcased a project supported by the Harmony Fund. Inspired by her own father’s experience, UC College-Conservatory of Music E-Media Professor Hagit Limor set out to create Moniek’s Legacy, a multimedia tool that captures the journey of a Holocaust survivor with lessons to inspire action against future acts of hatred. With support from the CCM Harmony Fund, Limor and 15 students in her fall 2019 Media Topics class will travel to Poland and Germany in October to work on the project. Moniek’s Legacy will create an immersive virtual reality experience, bringing viewers inside the survival story of Limor’s father through chapters such as Invasion, The Ghetto, Cattle Car Death Train, The Concentration Camp and Liberation. You can watch the special broadcast at the top of this page. 

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The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music’s Harmony Fund supports artistic works that fight hate and prejudice through the performing arts, bringing together audiences of different backgrounds around controversial topics and situations with the goal of inspiring meaningful conversations.  This special fund was created as both an acknowledgement of the continuing existence of hate and prejudice within our world and, more importantly, the ability of the arts to help us better understand and transcend these emotions.  The goal of any Harmony Fund project is to inspire imaginative thinking, encourage conversations, present contrasting attitudes and help us examine our own viewpoints.  The Harmony Fund supports the students and faculty at CCM to explore these issues and encourage them to find a voice.

Some previously sponsored Harmony Fund Projects include:

Blind Injustice – A project between CCM Opera, Cincinnati Opera, UC Law's Ohio Innocence Project, and the Young Professionals Choral Collective that portrays the true stories of six men and women who were wrongly convicted and later exonerated by the OIP.

Moniek’s Legacy – Created through the CCM E-media Department, Moniek’s Legacy is an immersive multimedia educational tool that brings the audience inside the story of a Holocaust survivor, but relates his journey to current events.  Moniek’s Legacy creates a platform for civil discussion among community groups and as a curriculum for teachers who want to challenge their students to consider their actions if confronted by bigotry.

Theater of War – This innovative public health project presents readings of Sophocles’ Ajax, an ancient Greek play about the suicide of a great and respected warrior, as a catalyst for facilitated town hall discussions about suicide, combat stress, alcohol and substance abuse, and the impact of war on families. A collaboration between the UC Office of the Provost, UC College of Arts & Sciences, CCM Harmony Fund, and TAFT Research Center.

Falsettos – the story revolves around a non-traditional family coping with their dysfunctions, personal flaws, and the impending tragedy of the international health crisis. Set in the post-sexual revolution of 1979 and the emerging AIDS epidemic in 1981, the family still finds themselves holding to each other.  The musical revolves around Marvin who attempts to keep his splitting family together.  A CCM Musical Theatre Studio Production.