Tufts Blogs

Music at Tufts comes in many forms, from acapella to chamber orchestra. I want to shine a light on a club that I decided to join as part of my final semester here: Public Harmony!

I sat down with the co-presidents, Jadyn and Bennett, to share more about the club and what it does. 

Iris: What is Public Harmony?

Jadyn: Public Harmony is a music service organization. We combine our love of music with providing music into the Greater Boston community to those who would otherwise not have access to live music. We take any and all Tufts musicians and undergrads, and we want to form a community of musicians. 

Bennett: Specifically what that looks like is that we’ll get a group of musicians together. We rehearse for a little bit, we figure out what songs we want to play, and then we Uber or drive out to a nursing home, assisted living facility, etc, and sometimes on-campus events. Each time we go out, we play about an hour setlist, but what’s also nice is that we play old music and new music. We get to talk to residents at these homes about music, the difference between our generations, what they’re up to, spreading joy and forming really strong bonds between the venues we go to. We have connections with these venues that we’ve made over the last 9 or so years that keep us really involved in the community. 

Iris: Why did you decide to join Public Harmony? How long have you been part of the club?

Jadyn: I joined Public Harmony my freshman fall when I got cornered at the club fair by one of the past presidents. She came up to me and asked “Do you like music and community service?” I responded “Separately, I do! I didn’t know you could put them together.” On the day of my first service concert, I really enjoyed it, I thought it was great. I actually messed up really badly during a song I was in; I played Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” in the wrong key and it sounded really bad. But then, I was with two other musicians and we stopped and then restarted. The reason why I still do the club is that I just think it’s such an amazing opportunity to continue to play music on campus. I feel like we’re so busy and we all have so many other things going on. It's nice that you can spend a Saturday out in the Greater Boston community and put on a concert and make somebody’s day. I feel compared to the music I grew up playing and the venues that I was in, which was a lot of orchestras, we never got to see the audience and understand how much the music meant to them like it did to us. It’s really nice when people would come up to you afterwards and talk with you, like “My mom played piano and my dad was in the Boston Symphony Orchestra and this brought me back to sitting in our living room and playing music together.” It’s things like that that make me feel like I got to do something good for the community and also continue my personal music journey with a bunch of cool people. 

Bennett: Very cool. My story is pretty similar. I was recruited my freshman spring by a senior back then and became much more involved my sophomore year. Once I did, I never looked back. This club is fantastic, and it’s, as co-president, one of my favorites at this school. I love everyone in it, cause everyone in it has the same goal: we want to spread joy through music. It’s great to learn about new music that other people bring to these service concerts. I get to join songs, and it’s something new every week too. It’s exciting and fun and a very wholesome time. 

Iris: Do you guys host any other fun events apart from playing at nursing homes or doing service concerts?

Bennett: As a club, our goal is to recruit more people, and become more massive. Besides our service concerts, we host events on campus like Community Day, Parents’ Weekend, but we also host bondings. The whole club will get together for a new member event and make dinner together, or - it got canceled sadly because of weather - but we were going to host a Valentine’s Day karaoke afternoon. Of course, the crown jewel of what we do is our end-of-semester showcase where anyone who’s done multiple service concerts can play music of their choice for the Tufts community. It’s a big event, it’s usually about an hour and a half to two hours of really awesome music, and we have an afterparty after that. People can relax and kick back after a long semester of working hard. It’s a ton of fun. 

Iris: Any words of advice for someone who might want to get involved with Public Harmony or music at Tufts in general but might be feeling a little shy about performing on stage?

Jadyn: I encourage literally everybody to join. I feel like even if you’ve never played an instrument before, if you are willing to learn and you’re interested in what we do, you should definitely check us out! We’d love to have you. Part of the reason I love this club is that we really get to play together with people from all 4 years at Tufts, so if you’re coming in and don’t know anybody, we’re more than happy to connect you with some people or have you hop in on a song. You just start to meet new musicians and it’s so fun! It’s a great way to spend your time and we would absolutely love to have you. 

Bennett: Jadyn said everything perfectly. She has recruited so many awesome people. At Community Day and the club fair, we love to play music with people and showcase what we do, and we’re always looking to expand more. For example, this year, we got our first banjo player, we have a few new strings players, and we have tons of new committed members, some of them have already joined our club board, which is how we run things. Any committed member who runs can help this club function and it’s a ton of fun to be both a member and a leader in this fantastic club. 

Jadyn: Again, we take all instruments, whether you’re just learning how to sing, or just picked up guitar, or you’re an opera singer, we would love to play music with you, and we will find a way to make that happen with whatever instrument or whatever you bring to the table.