‘Shall We Gather’ responds to the darkness of the pandemic and social distancing with the simple question of its title.

Through fifteen art songs by and about a broad swath of people from the United States, Lucas and Irina Meachem offer a vision of Americanness centred around the things that call on us to gather and that we gather to call upon. Those things, they say, are rooted in an act of hope in the promise of resilience that underlies our national character. By channelling the feelings of those gatherings we’re missing we can, perhaps, conjure a greater sense of togetherness, of commonality.

‘Shall We Gather’ is an emotional and heartfelt plea for a better, more tolerant world, a world that one hopes will emerge a better place after the trauma of the pandemic.