Faculty and Students Collaborate with the Carter Center to Produce 'Love is the Answer'
Still shot from the music video for "Love Is the Answer"
Berklee faculty, students, and alumni collaborated with the Carter Center’s Human Rights Program to produce a song, “Love is the Answer,” written by Florida-based inspirational artist Breeze the Voice. The video for the song premiered at the Carter Center’s 2016 Human Rights Defender’s Forum in Atlanta, where former President Jimmy Carter gave the keynote address titled “A Time for Peace.”
The video serves as the centerpiece of a social media campaign to promote the forum’s central themes, including the economics of peace, unlearning violence, and nonviolent approaches to security and law enforcement.
Watch the “Love is the Answer” video:
Alumna Karin Ryan ‘03, senior advisor to the Human Rights Program at the Carter Center, conceived the project while a student and set it in motion after a 2014 meeting with President Carter, Berklee’s President Roger H. Brown, and faculty and students. “Promoting human rights comes down to creative storytelling. I wanted to make better use of the arts in telling the story of the human rights struggle,” said Ryan, who attended Berklee during a leave from the Carter Center, where she has worked for 25 years.
Michael Farquharson, a contemporary writing and production professor at Berklee and Ryan’s former teacher, led the on-campus recording and production. Farquharson plays bass on the song and wrote the strings orchestration, performed by the Berklee Contemporary Symphony Orchestra. The song features Breeze and Rotana on lead vocals; George Russell Jr., Berklee Harmony Department chair, on piano; alumnus Pat Simard ’13 on drums; and the Berklee Reverence Gospel Choir on backing vocals.
“The song relates to every issue, from marriage to worldwide problems,” said Farquharson. “It applies to the subject and the topic of Carter’s speech profoundly. Love is the solution to pretty much everything.”