SINGING OF ONESELF
This is my program note for CAIC’s 2023 Collaborative Works Festival: Song of Myself, which occurs in Chicago from September 5-8, 2023.
“One’s-self I sing, a simple separate person,
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.
Of physiology from top to toe I sing,
Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse,
I say the Form complete is worthier far,
The Female equally with the Male I sing.
Of Love immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.”
Today, it would seem that we are living in an age of identity and expression. With the so-called “flourishing” of the “creator economy” over the past decade, the internet and tech sectors combined have created platforms and tools that anyone can use to express themselves through any medium that speaks to them. The effect of this has been to radically democratize art and expression, empowering the masses not only to practice and hone their chosen craft, but also bypass the gatekeepers of culture in unprecedented ways to share their work with an audience.
Yet the dialogue surrounding the subject of identity contains many pitfalls. Paradoxically, the individual can get lost in the heated conversation that inherently arises around the topic. Oftentimes, that discourse becomes reductive, with an increasingly myopic focus on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality, political affiliation, or socioeconomic class – as if each of these factors exist in a vacuum and could ever possibly define a person comprehensively. Reduced to our pronouns, our race, our political affiliation, our religion, our nationality, or whatever category becomes the focus, the individual is blended into the oblivion of a colored bar on a graph or section of a pie chart. We become red or blue citizens of a given state. Worse yet, these trappings of identity become ever fixed.
Despite drowning in a marketplace of self-help, that implores us to believe that we can grow, change, and evolve into better versions of ourselves, there is a general consensus that once we check a demographic box, it can never be unchecked, nor can we ever check a new one.
There is a danger to this rigidity and reductivism. The more calcified one’s sense of identity grows, the more it feeds stereotypes and prejudice. The hardened shell becomes not just a shield, but also a simplistic edifice that hides a rich, complex, ever-evolving reality underneath. It traps the inner self, stunting its growth, binding and twisting its roots. Defending itself in the face of otherness that feels threatening to its very nature, it can react with violence. Human history is overflowing with tragic examples of this kind of terrorism in the name of identity.
While not all his assertions stand up to the scrutiny of history and social progress, Walt Whitman was onto something in his opening poem in Leaves of Grass. His assertion that we contain multitudes within us touches on a universal truth about the intersectional complexity of what it is to be human, a complexity that grows increasingly intersectional and multi-layered with each passing day.
Personally, I identify as a multitude of things. I am an American. I am gay. I am a cis-gendered man. I am Greek. I am Chinese. I am an Asian American. I am a musician. I am the child of an immigrant. I am a Midwesterner. I am an outsider. I am middle-aged. I am an artist. I am a survivor. I am an independent. I belong to no political party. I am an agnostic Christian. I am a person of color. I am middle-class. I am a freelancer. I am self-employed. I am a brother. I am a son. I am an uncle. I am a lover. I am a Californian. I am a traveler. I am a leader. I am a perpetual student. I am a volunteer. I am a partner to a wonderful man with whom I share my life.
Some of these things are immutable. Some come with privilege. Some position me lower on the rungs of society’s castes. Some leave me unsafe in most spaces. Some of these things are fluid. Some of these things are evolving. And in writing these words, I find there is a certain terror in declaring oneself so publicly. I fear being pigeonholed. I fear being locked into any of these boxes for eternity. I fear being attacked. I fear being seen for only one of these aspects, only to be misunderstood because of the stereotypes associated with any one of these declarations of identity.
With these thoughts about the multitudinous nature of the self, this year’s Collaborative Works Festival explores the question of what it means to sing of oneself in today’s America. Examining the art of song as an expression of identity, we will explore the complexity, multiplicity, and intersectionality of selfhood. The Festival’s opening concert will meditate on identity and the individual. The festival’s second concert will then expand the question, probing the nature of collective identity. What happens when “I” becomes “We.” Who are we in the face of the communities around us? What is the relation of self to the “other”? How can we be seen? How can we see others in the fullness of their identities?
In the spirit of being as inclusive as possible, it felt necessary to involve many voices in the programming of this Festival. I am honored that three of this year’s Festival artists were willing to join me as co-curators of this year’s festival programs: mezzo-soprano Zoie Reams, countertenor Reginald Mobley, and CAIC co-founder and pianist Shannon McGinnis. Continuing this exploration of identity throughout the rest of CAIC’s season, each one of them will curate their own Lieder Lounge recital program later in the season.
I am grateful to Zoie, Shannon, and Reggie not only for their keen insight and artistic knowledge but also for their generosity of self as we assembled these programs, as well as to Laureano Quant for his contribution of his own compositions to these programs.