White Ribbon partnered with the Canadian Opera Company, world-renowned composers, and music scientists to create an original piece of music that could help men embrace their emotions. We invited men who struggle to express their emotions to experience the composition in the most moving way possible: on stage inside Canada’s largest, most prominent opera house. The music elicited chills and even tears from the men, helping them realize that showing vulnerability is not a weakness, but a strength.

The film takes an intimate look into the journey of these four men, and the creation of the composition that would transform their views of masculinity. With only one camera to capture each live musical performance, we had to carefully capture the intimacy of each man’s deeply personal experience without interfering with it.

Our culture socializes men to believe that expressing emotion is a sign of weakness. Because of this, many feel disconnected from their complex feelings and have difficulty expressing them. This results in poor mental health, lack of emotional connections to loved ones, the use of violence and control to address difficult emotions, and so much more.

The piece is a blend of art and science, grounded in music psychology, optimized to evoke emotion. It uses a host of techniques and arrangements—suspended tones, tempo changes, as well as well as subtle and sophisticated devices like appoggiaturas—to draw the listener in and guide them through a journey of thought, reflection, and ultimately an emotional reaction.

The co-creation of the piece was led by Johannes Debus, Music Director at the Canadian Opera Company, Dr. Psyche Loui, PhD – Associate Professor and Director, MIND Lab at Northeastern University, and Dr. Frank Russo, PhD – Professor of Psychology at Ryerson University.