Respect for the Anthem
In the November 2025 production of a major midwestern baroque orchestra, an incidentally spellbinding movement from American composer Damien Geter was featured. His Lacrimosa is woven around a repeated rendering of the Star Spangled Banner, introduced American style with the preceding snare drum, then reoccurring 3 times with increasingly captivating harmonies accompanying it, but always in the key of d minor; and every time, at word free, there was sudden silence. No matter what the composer might have stated about the movement, the music itself, aside from purely musical magnificence, gives a clear political message: ‘we do not live in the land of the free’.
I refused to play that movement. Below is the justification I wrote for my colleagues that week.
About three months ago, I learned from (the music director) that the Star Spangled Banner, in this production of November 2025, was going to be played in a minor key. I immediately told her that I cannot be part of that. I just became a US citizen and I swore an oath to protect my country, and I am pretty sure that that included the flag and the anthem. Had I known that this movement was going to be played, I would have turned down the production right away. I consulted with Jeannette, granting her basically all options including finding a replacement, or else my being off-stage during the movement’s performance. She decided that three months was too short to find said replacement, and, taking one thing with another, that it was best to allow me to sit out Geter’s Lacrimosa on stage. This option we deemed satisfactory to both of us.
Please understand that I am acting completely without prejudice. I totally understand why the composer chose to use the Banner in his powerful piece, for what purpose, and what he intended to express. I am also prepared to defend his right to do that. That is exactly what I believe America stands for, and what we all need to defend no matter what: for everyone to express his or her heartfelt opinion, sometimes in a shocking way of that is believed necessary. That’s what makes our country special, to some extent in today's world, but surely in world history. I demand however the right to protect my national anthem, the right not to violate it. Only when I am granted that right will I really be able to say I live in the land of the …
It was a powerful experience when I stood in that Cleveland city hall on that November afternoon three years ago. I was with about 200 strangers of all color, gender, and personal opinions, and suddenly, in one moment, we had all become compatriots, Americans. And yet, in one aspect, we all still belong to a minority within this proud nation: we were the only ones who officially and on a federal level swore allegiance to the flag. Unless I am mistaken, most Americans never had to do that. As a born Dutch citizen, I never had to make such a pledge over there either. While Mr. Geter, the composer of the piece in question, is part of a minority, so am I, and I never felt that more strongly than this week, when, in a crowd of 80 musicians, among whom perhaps 10% naturalized citizens, I was the only one who could not make myself cooperate. I hope you have the same understanding for the difficulty of my position and for the choice I believe I have to make, as I have for Mr. Geter and the choice he made programming the Banner in his compelling protest. (early November 2025)
I would like to conclude with the following. I am not a hero. I have seen, and even stayed in, countries where defiling the national anthem would get one demoted to cleaning toilets, or even jailed. If, God forbid, such horrors of the past became reality here, I would refuse to play Getter’s Lacrimosa to avoid punishment: ostracism, jail time or execution. As long as I remain ‘free’ to participate in such violation of the anthem, I will refuse to do so in respect for the freedom that anthem still stands for.
