‘Singing a lot of African American choral music with an almost-exclusively white choir probably warrants mentioning the word “slavery” at least once.’
Many artists will say that one of their favorite things about performing someone else’s work is the opportunity it gives them to step into someone else’s shoes, to get a completely different perspective on life. Doing so responsibly, however, requires a framework of thinking that takes into account the artist’s positionality – i.e. the ways in which their gender, race, class, and belief system influence their approach to an experience that does not belong to them and, ultimately, how they present it.
Without investigating one’s positionality (i.e. their limited perspective with regard to a story that is not their own) before diving into the work, harm is often the result: academic research is skewed to the perspective of the researcher (potentially resulting in harmful policy); art is skewed to the subjective tastes of the artists performing the work (potentially resulting in the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes and/or cultural appropriation).
The Edinburgh International Festival’s evening concert This Shining Night featured an almost exclusively white chorus performing a large body of American choral music, including many spiritual and classical pieces by African American artists. While the Edinburgh Festival Chorus’s performance was impeccable and made crystal clear why the talented conductor Sofi Jeannin was asked to return for this year’s season, the full effect of this concert was clouded by the off-putting failure to contextualize the music within America’s 250-year struggle with racist violence.
There were no explicit references to slavery or contemporary racism in the programme or performance, even though many of the pieces sung commented directly on those issues. These included Jeffrey L. Ames’ 2006 spiritual “I’ve Been In The Storm So Long,” which he wrote to honor the victims of Hurricane Katrina; Joel Thompson’s “Seven Last Words of the Unarmed,” a 2015 choral setting of the last words of seven Black men who were unlawfully killed by police violence; and “Soon Ah Will Be Done” by William L. Dawson, a traditional African American spiritual about the working and suffering of plantation slavery and the weary hope of a better life after death. Only in the online audio introduction of the piece were these “big themes” loosely alluded to by French-Swedish conductor Sofi Jeannin and Chorus Director James Grossmith. It was a bit absurd not to have this historical context mentioned at least once in a concert celebrating America, given the choice to predominantly highlight music about slavery and modern day acts of racist violence in America. Optically, it was hard not to see it as cultural appropriation.
Conductor Jeannin does state in the audio introduction, “It was important to me to try to show that diversity and [the] multiple sides and traditions of American [choral] music, but also staying away from anything that could resemble… cultural appropriation. It’s always, I think, dangerous when we start to put ownership on music, so I simply went with what I think are just really good pieces.” However, going with what one thinks is simply “just really good” does not take into account one’s positionality. To respectfully celebrate what she calls the “richness” of American choral music, she must acknowledge that her definition of “good” is shaped by her own and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus’s unique backgrounds. If anything, a simple word on the matter would have made the evening far more palatable than it was. It’s fine to want to “celebrate” the 250th birthday of the United States of America with a “diverse” range of voices. But singing a lot of African American choral music with an almost-exclusively white choir (to an almost-exclusively white audience) probably warrants mentioning the word “slavery” at least once.
Show Listing: https://www.eif.co.uk/events/this-shining-night