(Published in The World and I magazine, January, 1999)

The scenario was right out of a Cold War spy thriller. As prearranged, a dozen people arrived by separate paths at a parking lot in Soviet-occupied Estonia. There the Estonians and Americans divided into four cars and, with headlights off, drove by different routes to their common meeting place. The reason for their clandestine rendezvous? Members of choruses from the two countries were plotting to sing together and--more dangerously--to talk about inviting the Estonian choir to visit America.

That was 1987 and, thanks to Gorbachev and Glasnost, by 1990, the two groups could meet without fear of being under the surveillance of the KGB. In fact, when the Americans, a Boston-based chorus known as "Sharing A New Song (SANS)," and the Estonians, a male choir sponsored by their architect/builder collective, did actually host each other in their homes and sing together in both countries, it was no longer a subversive activity. Nor was it impossible or impolitic for Russians to invite Americans to their apartments or visit them at their hotels, as it had been in SANS’ first several trips to the former USSR.

Fifteen years after the first trip, there’s no doubt that teacher David Clapp’s idea was a good one. Talking with his high school history classes about how one person could make a difference, Clapp came up with the notion that bringing Russians and Americans together to sing could be a powerful way to dissolve the suspicion and fear between people who were told the others were the enemy.

The citizen chorus exchange program he went on to found has, indeed, accumulated abundant evidence that the love of music creates deep and abiding connections, even when the singers can’t always speak each other’s language. SANS travelers describe the tall blonde Russian woman in the yellow sweater who stood up in the middle of her diesel factory auditorium to join the visitors in singing "America the Beautiful," tears rolling down her cheeks. They have vivid memories of the young Xhosa men and women in a township outside Cape Town who began to sway and then wave their arms overhead, the traditional way of letting their visitors know that their hearts were being touched by what they were hearing. They remember the Chinese villagers who shed their initial shyness to surround the Americans and clap and smile at hearing a familiar folk song, "Jasmine Flower," coming from American lips. They tell of the Siberian babushkas who reached out to grasp the arms of Americans walking out among them singing the prayer, "Dona Nobis Pacem," and the black guide from Johannesburg who was astonished and moved that three white women would seek her out as a roommate during their time together.

Those moments and uncounted others have become commonplace for SANS travelers. The all-volunteer non-profit organization has now organized trips abroad for some 400 Americans and brought almost as many Russians, Estonians, and Latvians to their dream trip to the United States (SANS covers the US portion of their expenses in exchange for similar treatment abroad). The program has also spawned several high school exchanges, two adopted Russian babies, an American musician producing a Broadway musical in a Russian school, and any number of informal and individual visits back and forth among friends, and at least one marriage.

Once completely out of the question, in the 90s home stays are now an expected part of the SANS itinerary. American and Russian choruses have traveled together on the Trans-Siberian Railroad to camp out at Lake Baikal and spent a week sailing the Volga, stopping each night for a concert in a different town. In 1998 the Americans climbed the steps of an enormous outdoor stage in Riga, Latvia, to join 15,000 other singers in that country’s national choral festival.

The exchange program thrives because of "that kernel of good will that inspires us reach out through shared singing to people we don’t know or understand," said Clapp.

The Russians "were curious about what Americans looked like," recalls Galina Yevstifeeya, a long-time SANS friend from the Volga River city of Yaroslavl who has since come to the US many times, bringing students from her city to a New England boarding school for a month’s stay and teaching several terms of Russian culture in a suburban high school near Boston. Initially, the big "mystery for us was why Americans would want to come from so far away to a country that was such a mess," she said.

Over the years, several choruses plus the "Big Band," a 1940’s-era orchestra, have come to America from Yaroslavl (as well as other places) and now there are "such connections," Galina said. "People are now good friends and they are waiting for the Americans to come—the days that they are here are like a festival." In a decade of visits, "the Russians have learned a lot—and the more informal and relaxed style of the Americans has become very nice," said Galina.

Uneasy and embarrassed by the troubles in their country, the Russians worry that Americans see them as "second class" people. "I thought you would look down on us, coming from poorer country where we have so little," said Rosia Zhmaldinova, who discovered that was not the case when she came half way round the world from Bratsk, Siberia, to visit Boston. Now "I’m going to tell everybody in my country how wonderful Americans are," she said.

Curiosity and connections are words that come up most often when SANS’ hosts speak of their experiences. "We like to feel connected with the world, with people in other countries," said Hasso Nurm of Tallinn, Estonia, and his 16-year-old son, Erick.

"It’s important to learn from you what we need to do become part of a larger world," said Estonian Eugan Olle. "We can’t do what we need to do in isolation anymore," said Olle, a managing partner in a Ford dealership in Tallinn. Given the tension in the three Baltic nations with the their large post-occupation Russian populations, Olle and his wife, Mare, were especially interested in America as a "melting pot." They must learn, he said, "a hard thing—to be able to appreciate but not obliterate different heritages, without creating any division."

Olle takes such care to be informed that he prepares "crib sheets" listing the words he thinks he will need for each visit from a foreigner and each trip he takes outside his country. He went to the trouble to find all the English words for everything in his garden so he could converse intelligently with an American visitor.

Estonian Maila Merilo welcomed the chance to host American singers to meet new people and learn new things. And there would be "excitement and parties and concerts--joy would take over, and all our troubles will be forgotten for a while."

Most of all, the people who have sung with and hosted the Americans speak of a "spirit" which has touched them deeply. "Your singing speaks to our hearts, " says Tiina Selke, an Estonian music teacher.

"We love your spirit, your heart, your warmth," says a Russian-born blonde as we ready for the flight home from the Riga airport.

The Americans are equally as moved by their experiences. "There are three great moments in my life," said SANS member Jessica Mosher--"Getting married, having a baby, and marching in the [1990 choral festival] parade in Tallinn."

The chorus, which regroups for each year’s trip, is open without audition to anyone—as young as 12 and as old as 82—who loves to sing and travel in a people-to-people mode (and can find the money to go). There are formal concerts with hosts but the emphasis is on singing and spending time together. The choruses exchange music so they can sing together. That the Americans have learned songs of the host country--and in the native language--is an offering which seems to be the most moving of all.

But all the barriers are not international and so, in 1993, the predominately white SANS decided to see if music could be just as powerful a connector within its own country. Funds were raised to sponsor a Boston Gospel ensemble, "Praise," to join SANS on the Volga River trip, the beginning of an enduring and expanding relationship not only with that group but with others. SANS has opened up new worlds and new ways of being together they never thought possible, their African-American members say. In 1997 Praise raised its own funds to join SANS in South Africa. The goal for the 1999 return to South Africa is to collaborate on a joint trip with several Boston African-American groups.

While idealism is alive and well in an organization like SANS, being a welcomed American is not always easy. It’s not particularly easy to be in a home with scant refrigeration, food of dubious origins, and little privacy. It can be disconcerting to be the object of great generosity from people who welcome this excitement in often otherwise quite drab lives. It’s not always comfortable to struggle with long trolley and bus rides through blocks of deteriorating depressing apartments. And it can be disturbing to come in contact with those who equate Americans and money and seek relationships for their own advantage. Yet SANS’ experiences have turned up remarkably few such occasions.

Far more commonly, the Americans come home, not just with indelible memories, but with what they say is equally valuable--a new perspective on the abundance and comforts, the opportunity and freedom of their own country.

On their part, their hosts are surprised and fascinated to discover, as one Russian said, that at least some Americans "love music instead of money."

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Donna L. McDaniel, a freelance writer from Southborough, Mass., has traveled with Sharing A New Song to Russia, China, Estonia, Latvia, the Ukraine, South Africa and Cuba.