Campbell Vertesi

Yesterday was Pioneer Day in Utah - if you don't know what Pioneer Day is, you're in good company.  Suffice it to say that it's bigger, noisier, and more fervently patriotic than the fourth of July here.  There was a fairground, a parade through town, fireworks - the whole nine yards.  Even the Utah Festival Opera Company got into the spirit, with their annual Musica Magnifica concert.

Musica Magnifica is a perfectly innocuous name for a concert,  but it doesn't give you any idea what the concert is like.  I would call it something like Musica Americana instead.  We got dolled up in our tuxes and gowns, and proceeded to sing every patriotic song you can think of,  most of them as singalong numbers with the audience.

All joking aside - and there's a lot of joking when you're singing "Yankee Doodle" in a tux - it was a fun show.  Clearly the audience loved it,  and that makes all the difference. 

Personally, knee-jerk patriotic music bugs me.  America has an enormous amount to be proud of, but none of it is ever mentioned in songs!  Instead we get a lot of "I'm American which means I'm free", which is great, but not necessarily true... as an American you live in a country founded on freedom, but whether a generation lives up to the responsibility of preserving that freedom, or fighting to maintain it is another question.  Maybe I'm reading too much into casual music, but I think it encourages people to ignore the reality of freedom in America, in favor of a dream land where no one has to work for their freedom, where you just get it automatically as a part of being American.

So, where are all the songs about Americans winning women's suffrage, or about civil liberties and race relations?  Where are the songs about Americans who changed the world, or about the American can-do attitude?   Those are aspects that really could be celebrated, and might remind people that America is the home of the constant struggle to preserve and expand liberty.  Songs like that might inspire people to stand up for their freedoms in real life.

But it was a fun concert anyways.  If I can get a copy of it, I'm sure that somewhere there's a picture of all of us singing in front of the biggest American flag I've ever seen... the irony is fantastic.