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Dear family and friends,
Last night I heard a recital of piano music that was one of the most astounding musical experiences of my life. It was by Min Kwon, the distinguished Korean-born pianist and professor of music who commissioned 76 composers to write their version of America the Beautiful, in a set of variations she called America/Beautiful. Presented by the group Death of Classical, she performed a selection of these compositions in a most unusual venue: the crypt at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. We were lucky enough to know the leader of this organization, Andrew Ousley, who led us to a couple of front row seats, so we had a close-up view of Min's expressions as she played these pieces in the crypt on a 10-foot Yamaha grand.
I had not been previously aware of this tour de force, but apparently Ms. Kwon started approaching composers more than 5 years ago. She's been interviewed on NBC and has put videos of many individual pieces online. (Type in Min Kwon America/Beautiful on YouTube and hear them played in a loop. They're also on 5 CDs. In total, America/Beautiful is about 5 hours of music.)
As to the variations themselves, the range of styles goes from jazzy to atonal, from the quiet and meditative to the thunderously dramatic. Some are lyrical and celebratory of America, others seemingly critical, skeptical, questioning. Believe me, the piano gets a helluva workout. In its variety of styles the whole piece called to mind the great variations of classical music: Goldberg, Diabelli, Haydn, Handel, Brahms, Rachmaninov, Reschevsky. A simple tune turned inside out, upside down, the theme prominantely present, embellished, or hidden, or ignored.
While Min Kwon has been playing these pieces all around the country for some time, they're particularly relevant right now as the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration approaches. In a better world Min Kwon might have performed a selection of these compositions on the White House lawn in place of the bloody and disgusting cage match there last weekend. If there are any cultural historians around in 2276, and people are still able to play music from our era, they could have no better insight into who we were as a people than to listen to these remarkable compositions in all their different, complicated, energetic, critical, doubtful, hopeful voices. I think they might be impressed by the scope of this unique cultural achievement and appreciate that it came out during one of the darkest periods in American political history, when 76 composers of our time, inspired by a virtuoso Korean-American pianist, were still able to exercise their artistic freedom to create this astonishing paean to diversity.
Have a listen. Happy birthday, America.
June 2026
On Juneteenth, I traveled less than thirty minutes from Manhattan to Brooklyn, yet it felt as though I had entered another world. Green-Wood Cemetery has a remarkable ability to alter one’s state of consciousness. The speed and efficiency of the city gradually give way to winding paths, rolling hills, old-growth trees, and monuments that hold centuries of memory. Some tombs are modest and nearly hidden among the landscape; others are as large as Manhattan apartments. Everywhere, one encounters evidence of lives remembered.
As I walked the grounds before the performance, I found myself unexpectedly grateful. The cemetery is meticulously cared for. The lawns, trees, pathways, and monuments reflect a deep commitment to stewardship. Rather than feeling abandoned to the past, Green-Wood felt alive with remembrance.
The setting proved particularly fitting for Min Kwon’s America/Beautiful 250 project. Presented in partnership with Death of Classical, the concert took place within Green-Wood’s Catacombs—a long, vaulted underground passage illuminated by an otherworldly glow. The lighting was difficult to describe. It felt less like stage lighting than a threshold: part halo, part doorway, suspended somewhere between memory and hope. The space itself seemed to invite contemplation.
Death of Classical deserves recognition for its imaginative rethinking of where classical music can live. By bringing music into spaces such as catacombs, cemeteries, crypts, and historic landmarks, the organization transforms listening into something closer to pilgrimage. The venue becomes an active participant in the performance.
This was especially true on Juneteenth. A holiday dedicated to memory, freedom, and unfinished journeys found an appropriate home within a cemetery where the living gather among those who came before them. The setting quietly reminded listeners that history is never entirely past. It continues to shape the present.
What impressed me most, however, was not only the music itself but the extraordinary vision behind America/Beautiful 250. The project commissions seventy-six composers to create variations on America the Beautiful in celebration of America’s 250th anniversary. To imagine such a project is ambitious. To sustain it requires something rarer: years of relationship-building, diplomacy, organizational skill, and devotion. Seventy-six variations ultimately represent not merely seventy-six compositions, but seventy-six conversations, relationships, and perspectives on what America has been, is, and might yet become. One begins to appreciate the magnitude of the undertaking.
In this sense, America/Beautiful 250 has become more than a concert series. It has become Min Kwon’s artistic mission. As a pianist, educator, advocate, and cultural bridge-builder, she has devoted herself to creating a space where multiple voices can be heard together. The result is not an idealized portrait of America, nor a cynical one.
Instead, the music reveals a vulnerable America.
A hopeful America.
A conflicted America.
A grateful America.
An uncomfortable America.
An unfinished America.
The diversity of musical language throughout the evening reflected this complexity. Even after attending multiple performances in the series, I was struck by how fresh the program felt. Each variation approached the familiar melody from a different emotional and aesthetic perspective.
Together they formed a musical portrait capable of holding both affection and critique. In that sense, the project offered a lesson not only about music but about how one might love a country.
Love, after all, is not idealization.
Love sees weakness as well as strength.
Perhaps the same is true of nations.
Earlier that morning, I had been reflecting on the human body as a resonant chamber—an instrument of breath, vibration, and sound. By evening, sitting within the Catacombs, I found myself experiencing resonance on multiple levels. There was the resonance of space. Theresonance of music. The resonance of listeners gathered together. The resonance of history. As the piano filled the underground chamber, the boundaries between architecture, sound, memory, and community seemed to blur. The Catacombs themselves became a participant in the performance.
The evening concluded with an unexpected gift. For the final performance, Min Kwon was joined by one of the composers in a duet variation on Somewhere Over the Rainbow. The choice felt deeply symbolic. The song has always carried themes of longing, hope, distance, and the possibility of another world. To hear it performed within the Catacombs of a cemetery transformed its meaning. Surrounded by the memory of those who had gone before us, the familiar melody seemed to hover between grief and hope, absence and presence, mortality and transcendence. For a moment, the space itself felt suspended between worlds.
As the final notes faded into the vaulted corridor, I looked again at the luminous arches stretching into the distance. They no longer seemed merely architectural. They felt like thresholds.
Doorways between memory and hope.
Between the living and the dead.
Between what has been and what is still becoming.
Afterward, as dusk settled over Green-Wood, I boarded the trolley back toward the entrance. Many older couples were making the same journey. As often happens, small conversations emerged naturally. We exchanged smiles, shared a few words, and continued on our separate ways. Those brief encounters felt like part of the evening’s lesson as well.
Wonder does not always arrive through grand events. Sometimes it appears when strangers share a landscape for a moment and recognize one another’s presence. I arrived expecting a concert. I left feeling as though I had taken a journey—not far in distance, but far in awareness. On a day that honors freedom, memory, and unfinished histories, the experience felt especially resonant. The music did not resolve America into something simple. It revealed something still in motion, still contested, still becoming.
On Juneteenth, that felt like a gift.
Iris Inhee Moon is a writer, curator, and community-based practitioner whose work explores art, wonder, belonging, and human flourishing. She is the director of CURA, an arts, community, and therapeutic initiative dedicated to cultivating spaces where creativity, reflection, and human connection can thrive.
Iris Inhee Moon
June 2026