MY MUSICAL CLIMATE JOURNEY BY SEAN MENDELSON
Since I could grow facial hair, I have been a children’s music developmental advocate. I have committed my life’s work and livelihood to nurturing children’s interest and competence in music. I run a licensed music education center based largely on the Music Together program called Teacher Sean’s Music Factory in Santa Clara. I also have been performing children’s music with my kids, Jillian and Logan, since 2013 under the artist name “Sean’s Music Factory.”
Kids are sponges when it comes to music, and the starting age is zero (a lot of my students start in utero). It never ceases to amaze me when a parent tells me their child sang notes before they spoke a word, or a baby matched the pitch of a recording they listened to as a family over and over.
When my son was born in 2007, I had just seen Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. These two life events together ignited my climate activist journey. I sought out ways my interest in writing and performing music could intersect with climate activism. I wrote my first environmentally conscious song in 2012 called “Earthy Friend” where I attempted to anthropomorphize Earth. I thought about how Earth is an organism just like us, and …
If I could get a child to think that way, I could shape their future appreciation of the planet.
Kids have a powerful influence on adults. If I can keep a 3-year-old engaged for 45 minutes, I have done my job. If I get a message across to an 8-year-old, I am confident they can teach their parents about how to be more climate-engaged.
With my own children starting to contemplate the future of the planet, I started losing faith in our government and our adults. Then I discovered Juliana vs. the United States in 2015, a case in which a group of tween and teens sued the government for the constitutional right to clean air – the same air that adults have allowed to be polluted for too long. It was powerful and empowering for young people, igniting me to create a song about it.. Later, Greta Thunberg came out of nowhere and eviscerated the status quo. These are my people. They have a moral argument against adults, and it is just.
In 2019, I marched through downtown San Jose to the Youth Climate Strike. I got emotional chanting these simple musical refrains over and over with my daughter holding a sign next to me. I felt bad because she didn’t know the potential hazards of the future, but I didn’t want her to know. The balancing act between despair and climate change competence for children continues to nag at me to this day.
In October 2021, I became a Climate Reality Leader, and I was particularly thrilled to hear scientists talk about the importance of symbolism in art and in music. They placed such value on it that it further fueled my motivation to inspire children through music.
There have been lessons along the way. In 2013, I had written a climate change musical that was all doom and gloom. My father, Lee Mendelson, who wrote “Christmas Time is Here” and produced all the Peanuts specials in the 20th century, told me no one wants to hear this. I was crushed, but I realized years later that he was right because change comes when art is used to uplift. That was such an important moment for me.
Axoloris: A Climate Musical
On Earth Day 2022, I will be premiering my second musical for families, “Axoloris.” Cast mostly with the young impressionable people I aim to activate, it will be an upbeat and lively musical. It will also be interactive, with the audience having opportunities to vote on what happens. This interactivity is important to me because it is key to engaging tweens and teens.
Every year Earth Day passes without much fanfare. As Al Gore and the scientists said at leadership training, I need something bold. What about a bold protagonist like Axoloris – an Earth messenger that is part slow loris, part axolotl, and part spiritual demigod? Then I pondered, “What is engaging about my kids and my favorite shows, like Goonies and Stranger Things?”
Through this process, I arrived upon the story: In 2050 when a hydroelectric plant in a small community fails, five apathetic tweens must figure out how to use renewable energy to restart the plant and save their community. In the story, Earth Day 2020 was the day that Axoloris first visited humans in their sleep and helped promote ways to appreciate the Earth or aid against climate change. I researched all the cool and useable renewable energy ideas and put them in the show.
Just before my father passed on Christmas 2019, I played “Axoloris” for him. He gave me all kinds of constructive and positive feedback, which inspired me to continue my work to bring the show to life. My goal is to spark kids love and innovation when it comes to taking care of the planet. I want “Axoloris” to be a thing that carries over past the theater doors.
Knowing how kids are like sponges, I hope the tendency to make Earth a priority becomes second nature to the children I work with. If I sing Earth’s praises enough, maybe I can galvanize further change in the right direction and away from fossil fuels. Maybe a kid watching my musical or coming to one of my performances will find a creative new renewable that is the tipping point in the right direction.
MUSICAL CHANGE.
Sean Mendelson is a Climate Reality Leader (US 2021), music educator, composer and performer. He lives in Campbell, and has two musically gifted children, Jillian and Logan.