For well over a decade, Muse/Ique founder and conductor Rachael Worby has crafted highly popular shows that explore the impact of music on the world. In shows that blend music, dance, acting and other performing arts, the Pasadena-based orchestra is acclaimed for its vibrant takes on a highly eclectic array of issues.
Tonight and Thursday (June 21-22), Muse/Ique kicks off its 2023 season titled “Music = Power” with a concert called “The UnAmericans: Talented and Targeted.” The show chronicles the effects the Hollywood blacklist in the 1950s had on musicians, singers, and composers, and it explores the ways they overcame oppression through music.
The show is a tribute to the perseverance and power of artistic expression – and the belief that being American means being free to fully express ourselves. According to Worby, the show may be rooted in events over 60 years ago, but its themes are highly relevant today.
“Music opens our hearts and expands our imaginations. Music is so often the primary conduit through which our society moves forward, and the social and emotional equity that comes from music is the focus of our season,” notes Worby. “That’s why it’s so vital that we tell the story of the musicians who were silenced by the process that led to the Hollywood Blacklist.
“If the most ingenious and expressive among us can be silenced, then we are all at risk. But these artists, who were once called Unamerican, triumphed through their bravery, creativity, and perseverance. Almost a century later, the blacklisted and targeted artists we celebrate with this show have come to define the American sound – and the American spirit.”
The show features two-time Emmy-nominated actress Wendie Malick, Tony and Grammy-nominated actor Brandon Victor Dixon, veteran actor Dan Lauria as they perform dramatic readings and narrations tied to the historic themes. In addition, vocalist Angie Fisher – who has sung with Michael Jackson, Celine Dion and Mariah Carey – will make her MUSE/IQUE debut as the lead singer on several musical numbers throughout the evening.
They will be joined by The DC6 Singers Collective, a Los Angeles-based ensemble of dynamic and energetic a cappella, gospel, and Motown singers.
The concert—and a concurrent Skirball Cultural Center exhibit (through September 3, with a Skirball performance of the concert this Sunday, June 25) — explores the history and impact of the Hollywood Red Scare and its contemporary implications for civil liberties, propaganda, and shifting definitions of American patriotism. It places a spotlight on the proceedings, investigations, motives, and choices of those caught in the crosshairs—including the many musicians, who suffered under and enforced the blacklist.
There are two more concerts in the MUSE/IQUE season, with “Central Avenue: Songs and Stories of Los Angeles’ Central Avenue” presented July 15 and 16 at Pasadena’s Memorial Park. The show celebrates the fact that from the 1920’s through the-1950’s Central Avenue was the heart of African American cultural life in Los Angeles, and was the hotspot that served as LA’s answer to the Harlem Renaissance. The music of artists including ouis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday will be spotlighted in an array of musical numbers
And on Aug. 3 at the Huntington, MUSE/IQUE will present “Bernstein at Heart: Learning is Living,” an homage to world-renowned composer Leonard Bernstein’s legendary “Young People’s Concerts” helped define our modern imagination. Director Rachael Worby’s idol, we learn how these famed telecasts became a blueprint for learning and a lesson in the power of knowledge that still resonates today.
“The UnAmericans: Talented and Targeted” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. tonight and Thursday at the Huntington Library, 1151 Oxford Rd., San Marino. Call (626)539-7085 or visit muse-ique.org.
