Written April 11, 2024 by Gemma Peacocke | I Care If You Listen
An excerpt from the full article:
Fittingly for a piece about the United States, many of American Patriots‘ songs combine elements of both classical music and jazz, and the style and subject matter of the songs traverse the breadth of American experience. The provocative text of “I’m Not BIPOC” becomes a perfectly squeamish, funny piece of musical theatre in the hands of composer Yaniv Segal and soprano Annie Sherman. In the song, a white actress declares that America does not have a “race problem,” and in a paroxysm of cognitive dissonance, that, “the whites are the ones being oppressed.”
By contrast, “Homecoming,” with music by Regina Harris Baiocchi, highlights the painful discord of a Black Navy veteran returning home to a United States wracked by racial violence. And “Could Have Been Me,” also by Segal, is a first-person account from an undocumented immigrant crossing the southern border from Mexico into the United States….
YOU’VE MADE A COMMITMENT TO “INTENTIONAL STORYTELLING” WITH AMERICAN PATRIOTS. HOW DO YOU DEFINE “INTENTIONAL STORYTELLING,” AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO YOU AND TO THE CREATION OF THIS WORK?
I find myself embodying the tension between a need to advocate for caution, intentionality, accountability, and responsibility when it comes to portraying stories other than our own, particularly those of marginalized identities, AND a deep desire to protect space for artists and creators to be able to do what they do – to storytell, to interpret, to create, to transcend.