When Cathy was presented the 2008 Ohio Governor's Arts Award for Community Participation, she was given the opportunity to say a few words. Here are her comments.

"Good afternoon. I am full of emotion, memory, and gratitude.

From MUSE Cincinnati’s Women’s Choir and UMOJA Men’s Chorus at Warren Correctional Institution, to the Voices of Freedom, choristers at St. John’s Unitarian Universalist Church, and members of the Wilmington College Chorale, it is these people to whom I am thankful. I am grateful for the volunteers, the women and men who join their voices to raise our collective consciousness, to say that the arts are indeed alive and very relevant. They sing inspiration, they sing justice, they are the choral communities of hope.

These are challenging times --- for Ohio, for our country, and the world. We are at war, our planet and our economy suffers severe stress, religious intolerance abounds, free speech and rights are curtailed. In many quarters, the activities and budgets of our arts organizations are considered fluff, peripheral to our busy, unexamined lives.

Yet, we can create choral communities that are metaphors and microcosms of a world we wish to see. A chorus can become a village to raise up a soundscape harmony and hope. Groups of diverse people gather in collaboration, bringing their lives and experiences together. The music is the means; beauty is the goal, knowledge about each other and understanding can be the outcome.

All choral communities are a negotiation. Sometimes it is a negotiation when we learn newly commissioned works, or when we perform music from other cultures. Sometimes we are conscious of being in unfamiliar territory literally, when we accept invitations to sing in communities unlike our own. The rewards are exceptional --- these choral communities become the terrain where we work, sing, feel, and comprehend our interconnectedness.

This award is recognition that we can build harmony, create a unity out of our beautiful diversities, and become the change we wish to see. Let us think globally and sing locally.

Thank you to all gathered here who do amazing work to support and sustain the arts in Ohio: Members of the Ohio Arts Council, Julie Henahan, Susan Saxbe, Jeffrey A Rich, Bill Harris, John Husted, and Governor and Frances Strickland."