{"id":99555,"date":"2023-04-06T09:59:40","date_gmt":"2023-04-06T13:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/?post_type=bu-article&p=99555"},"modified":"2023-04-06T09:59:41","modified_gmt":"2023-04-06T13:59:41","slug":"opening-doors-qa-with-classical-singer-patrick-dailey","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/news\/articles\/2023\/opening-doors-qa-with-classical-singer-patrick-dailey\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening Doors: Q&A with Classical Singer Patrick Dailey"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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Photo courtesy of Patrick Dailey<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t

\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCFA Alumni<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOpening Doors: Q&A with Classical Singer Patrick Dailey\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Patrick Dailey (CFA\u201914) sings countertenor professionally, teaches voice at Tennessee State University, and does everything he can to boost the community of Black singers and musicians.<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n
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April 6, 2023<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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This article was first published in Bostonia<\/a><\/em> on April 5, 2023. By Joel Brown<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Excerpt<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

They are determined to use their experience, influence, and positions to help make their business, organization, and world more inclusive. They are breaking barriers\u2014and then reaching back to help those behind them overcome the same hurdles. They are BU alumni, faculty, and staff\u2014of every race, ethnicity, age, and gender\u2014and they are \u201cOpening Doors\u201d for the next generation.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Patrick Dailey\u2019s Twitter profile picture<\/a> shows him rocking a \u201cBlack music matters<\/a>\u201d T-shirt. It\u2019s kind of a mission statement for his career as a classical singer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dailey<\/a>\u00a0(CFA\u201914) sings countertenor. He lives in Nashville and teaches voice and other music classes at Tennessee State University.\u00a0Nashville Scene<\/em>\u00a0named him the city\u2019s best classical singer in 2022. But the community that means the most to him is clearly the community of Black singers and musicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He received his undergraduate degree in music performance from historically Black Morgan State University. He was already singing professionally when he got his Master of Music from Boston University, thinking it might open more doors than a degree from a conservatory. At Tennessee State, which both his parents attended, he founded the Big Blue Opera Initiatives, a program for underserved students there and at other historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU). (The HBCU acronym comes up a lot in his conversation.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also founded the W. Crimm Singers, the resident ensemble at Tennessee State, named for TSU voice teacher and mentor William Crimm. He has sung in competitions and on America\u2019s Got Talent<\/em>, and on many different stages both sacred and secular, including at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville, and\u2014with Aretha Franklin\u2014at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., at an event marking President Barack Obama\u2019s 2009 inauguration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is sustained by a broad vision of the Black music community, drawing from all of the people who helped a Black, gay youth find artistic success and personal fulfillment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q&<\/span>A<\/h2>

WITH PATRICK DAILEY (CFA’14)<\/h4><\/div>\n

Bostonia:<\/span> Some people we interview for this series are all about breaking down barriers in places where they might have been excluded. You do some of that, but you seem particularly focused on strengthening the Black music community, at the historically Black colleges and universities, and in the Black church.<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Dailey:<\/span> I\u2019m devoted to Black institutions in general, but particularly the Black church and the Black colleges and universities, because they, to be clear and frank, really made me. I\u2019m grateful for the public schools and all of these other things, but it was really the Black institutions.

I\u2019m the great-grandson of West Tennessee sharecroppers on my mother\u2019s side. My mother came to Nashville in 1966 to attend what was then called Tennessee Agricultural & Industrial State University, founded in 1912 from the second leg of the land-grant act. My father was also a student there, and in 1970 they were married.

I always loved choirs, and in particular, the Black college choir tradition. As I started studying voice, I wanted to be a\u00a0Jubilee Singer<\/a>, and though I didn\u2019t go to Fisk University, the love for that tradition really remains strong.

I\u2019m attempting to do something within the community, with the people that I love the most\u2014that really helps to reignite the flame, the understanding of who we are to each other. What is possible? What limits we can take off when we really decide to bet on ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bostonia:<\/span> What was your experience at BU and in the early music world in Boston?<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Dailey:<\/span> There\u2019s so much great music and artistry happening at BU, but I was used to the joy that comes out when Black folks experience it. I didn\u2019t get that. There were cultural things, people don\u2019t express themselves the same way, and it was hard for me to understand. Now I\u2019m not one to bite my tongue about race, or what I observe. So, I\u2019m like, well, if you don\u2019t have a frame of reference for something I\u2019m talking about, I need to explain it to you. I end up having to explain to you about Black churches and Black institutions and Black Greek life and everything else. It just showed me how much work we have to do in society for people to really connect and build relationships.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bostonia:<\/span> Talk about discrimination you\u2019ve faced in the classical world, at BU or beyond.<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Dailey:<\/span> In my beginning experiences, people I knew who were very much into early music, yes, they were very talented and highly intelligent and well-read, but they weren\u2019t always the nicest people. They were often quite arrogant and not helpful. To me, they looked down upon you, if you didn\u2019t know the most obscure treatises and information about their field: \u201cYou didn\u2019t read this thing from 1496?! Hmm! We all read it.\u201d It was like if you didn\u2019t come into the room having their same knowledge and information, oh, then you\u2019re not supposed to be doing this. It\u2019s like, well, if I don\u2019t know, why don\u2019t you help me figure it out? Give me some sources, and don\u2019t be a jerk about it. So, I was initially resistant to early music because of the experiences that I had.

I found the music to be beautiful, but also I had a perception that early music was restrictive, because every time I talked to these people they said, \u201cOh, you can\u2019t do this. This is not the style. You can\u2019t do that.\u201d\u00a0

But I also will say that because of race, class, and privilege, there can be little understanding of people who don\u2019t come from the same spaces. A lot of folks also just don\u2019t know how to talk to people of different backgrounds and experiences. But that\u2019s part of my role, to build and be a bridge.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bostonia:<\/span> Have you faced any more overt, direct sort of discrimination in the classical world?<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Dailey:<\/span> The performing arts world sees itself as very inclusive, to the point where some folks do not try to acknowledge the differences in folks and just brush it off. They want to see everything as colorless, believing that\u2019s a good thing. Most of the time, it\u2019s not overt, it\u2019s sort of underlying. They don\u2019t realize that they\u2019re being disrespectful.

Until recently, many singers\u2014Black singers, singers of all ethnicities\u2014were sort of expected to not fully show up as themselves. Change your language, change how you react. A lot of code-switching is required to be seen as professional.

Although some may have issues around race, it\u2019s not purely about race per se as much as it is about not being aware of where other people come from culturally and dismissing that.
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Entering the early music scene, I was singing really big, in full, and you have people saying in a coaching, \u201cOh, this is lovely! But there\u2019s too much color in the sound.\u201d Microaggressions like that show more of their blind spots than it shows about any of us.

Now I think there are doors opening. My biggest thing is ensuring that we have agency, and artists are free to create their own thing and not have to wait for someone else. That\u2019s one thing that my friends across the country marvel at when they come to Nashville, and they see what [creative] freedom does. They say, \u201cY\u2019all are working all the time, but y\u2019all are often working on your own projects.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

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Now I think there are doors opening. My biggest thing is ensuring that we have agency, and artists are free to create their own thing and not have to wait for someone else. That\u2019s one thing that my friends across the country marvel at when they come to Nashville, and they see what [creative] freedom does.<\/div>