An Indianapolis-based arts organization celebrates the artistry of one of its resident musicians, who hails from France.
Have you ever been deeply inspired by a specific place to the point that it sticks with you for the rest of your life?
What about specific people you meet?
This is exactly what happened to one of our musicians-in-residence, Pascal Glock.
Originally from Toulouse, France, Pascal came to Indianapolis for the first time back in 2021 for an internship at the Harrison Center, and then again in 2025 for a Music Fellowship.
Pascal is a very thoughtful and intuitive person who creates songs that are poetic, full of graceful melodies, and beautiful lyrics.
For his first summer in Indianapolis, he focused on writing music about the trees in the city’s Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood.
Pascal observed that they serve as a perfect representation of how our neighborhoods change: growing slowly, seeing the changes and the neighborhood’s different phases, the good and the bad.
The second time Pascal came for a residency at the Harrison Center in 2025, he wrote about “dirt” and asked, “What is your foundation, what is your treasure, what have you buried, what are you
digging up, how are you supported and held up?”
He spent time talking with the long-term residents of Martindale-Brightwood, listening to them share about their lives and experiences.
He got to know some of the long-term residents in our neighborhood, known as “Greatriarchs,” a title that honors both their role in the neighborhood and their active participation in shaping its culture and spirit.
Amid his summer residency last year, Pascal said he joined the choir at church at Oasis of Hope, biked and walked throughout the neighborhood, attended community events, went to the library, discovered the story of the neighborhood, interviewed residents, got multiple car tours through the neighborhood, and wrote songs from all of this experience.
While writing his music, Pascal sought to write celebratory music while also calling attention to the difficult events that these Greatriarchs have experienced:
Staying celebratory was hard. There is a lot of painful past in Martindale-Brightwood, he recalled, referring to the history of racism and segregation in the community.
“Who am I to reopen wounds of the KKK burning crosses on Wheeler street, the ripping up of the neighborhood by the interstate, the abomination of redlining, maintaining inequality, and separate living across color lines down to this day?
“What to do of the exodus of the children through the perverse effects of the desegregation of Indianapolis Public Schools through busing?”
But in the midst of that hardship, he said he remained inspired by their spirit.
“Their hope. Their music. The infusion of ‘when they go low, we go high’ in all, the daily vindication of their character through the testimony of the Greatriarchs. To them goes no shame,” he said.
“To them belongs a compelling and startling witness of purity of motives, perseverance in trials, goodness given in the face of cruelty. Christlike. Godly.”
