Today we’d like to introduce you to Patrick Gandy.
Hi Patrick, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I am a musician and social entrepreneur. I was born in 1962 and vividly remembered the six and eleven o’clock news hours and the pictures of civil unrest rolling across our black and white television screen. In years to follow, I began my music studies. It was through music that I began to open myself to understand my connection to the United States and the rest of the world and to try and make sense of my formative preteen years in a mostly white Catholic school. It was then that I remember not wanting to live the same life as dictated to me by my mom and dad. They stressed the importance of education, getting a good job with benefits, and leading a productive life free of encumbrances, especially drugs and jail. They were right. They were right about everything, just not right about how to achieve success for me.
As a child, I had that nagging feeling that I am not enough outside my house. This feeling, over time, gives way to the “something is off here” sensation that never wanes. It is a pavlovian sense that is actually necessary while navigating black life. I don’t look for these differences except to explore them in my composing. Still, “the talk” coupled with those images I saw on television, in the movies, and in commercials made me identify as “other” and instinctually warned me to tread carefully in all of my relationships. The aforementioned PTSS was instrumental in me starting The Silence Is Broken (https://www.thesilenceisbroken.org). The Silence Is Broken (SIB) uses the creative and performing arts as a tool to rally communities and inspire investment in them to cure issues once labeled intractable. We make docu-concert movies on varying issues utilizing original artistic works of art to share with the world where the proceeds would go to organizations on the front lines of the cause or issue and cure it.
Our introductory movie is The Silence Is Broken. We wrote a movie featuring the artistry of Loretta Devine, Patrice Rushen, T.C. Carson, Karen Elaine and the students from The San Diego School for Creative and Performing Arts, Cheray O’Neal, seventy musicians from the University of Southern California augmented by studio musicians, a choir of twelve, three ballet dancers and all original music composed and conducted by me. Our second piece was for the Adopt-a-Saint organization. They rescue St. Benard dogs. Our third piece we shot at The New School in New York City. It features jazz saxophonist Dave Glasser and his quintet. Our latest piece is an outdoor offering shot on a farm high in the Cleveland National Forest in Orange County. People have been very generous to SIB. I had to create something that could potentially generate enough interest, provide real economic opportunity and foundation for artists of all disciplines, and generate enough revenue to realize the work and eradicate the same persistent problems that plague us once and for.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Of course, the road has not been smooth. It has been exhilarating but not smooth. The biggest challenge for us has been getting people to let go of their preconceived ideas of philanthropy. A 501(c)(3) organization is a business and conducts itself as such. The modifier being for the good of the public, there are no shareholders. So, when I describe SIB and its mission to make docu-films (which employ artists) and make pieces that enlighten and make the world better the pin drop on the other side is very loud. There is nothing new in what I’m doing except creating a space where the best ideas can shine, where the artist’s work makes us think, where voices heretofore unheard can work and develop, and where we can disarm our preconceived notions about a problem to truly fix it.
This is all done by hundreds, and then thousands, and then millions, and God willing-billions of people having a movie night and going online to https://www.thesilenceisbroken.org, paying their money and having a wonderful time. Easy, right? Our The Silence Is Broken movie was written to spread awareness and raise money for black women infected and affected by HIV and AIDS (to the exclusion of no other group). You wouldn’t believe how disinterested and fearful people still are about this topic. To this end, the visceral has to drive the bus and the audience just has to allow the music to have its way with them. You will not be disappointed. Another challenge is an internal one. I had a problem with selling SIB. Not because I did not believe in it. I am the SIB champion, but because the people in my orbit did not get it. So, I’ve spent years working to rectify this problem because I was the problem. Now, we are going to open SIB to leadership beyond myself and the small group of lawyers who assisted us in the past and develop a strong Board of Directors.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a pianist, composer, orchestrator, arranger, conductor and music director having worked in television, film, theatre, and records with many inspiring artists including Patrice Rushen, Jennifer Holliday, Renée Goldberry, Rickey Minor, and Stevie Wonder. I attended the Eastman School of Music, the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), and the Grove School of Music. I have worked on several recordings including Dianne Reeves’ Tribute to Sarah Vaughn entitled, The Calling (Grammy Award), Billy Childs’, Lyric (Grammy Award), and Stevie Wonder’s, A Time to Love. I have scored films and served as musical director and/or pianist for touring companies of Broadway productions including Dreamgirls, The Lion King, and Aida. I have performed/conducted in such illustrious venues as Lincoln Center and the White House. I am also the recipient of the 2017 ASCAP Foundation/Symphony Jazz Commissioning Competition and the 2020 NAACP Theater Award for Best Musical Director (99 seats). As an entrepreneur, I am the Founder and Executive Producer of The Silence Is Broken.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
During the Covid-19 crisis, I’ve seen our humanity on display. The good, the bad, and the ugly actors have shown themselves. Still, I still believe in us. I believe in the American experiment more than ever and I believe the best and most inclusive America is emerging through this pandemic. We stood by for four years peering through normalized lenses as our institutions were ground into unrecognizable replicas of their former selves. And then, soulless and clueless about what to do next, our Nations’s Capitol was breached and defiled. Finally, the lenses came off and we are fighting again for our soul. We all caught a glimpse of empty shelves where food and cleaning products were once plentiful, we saw people not wear masks on purpose, unaware of what a fight, a war effort, a pandemic sacrifice is all about. Last year we saw black Americans lose their lives to law enforcement just because. The lenses came off and everyone could see what civil rights have been about all of these years. Racists, racism, and hate have been on display in the highest and most respected places in our land. Yes, in the places we are taught to trust as secure and above reproach. Black people have always known “something is off here” and yet we keep going. I’ve learned we will never be the same again.
Black people will never go back to the way it was. I’ve learned that the pens of artists are needed more than ever to make sense of chaos, to offer insight, and to be a way shower and deliver beauty to us when the world and intentions fail us. HIV and AIDS introduced us to comorbidity issues and the brutal effects these have on communities of color. Nobody should ever have been in amazement around comorbidity as it applies to Covid-19. We knew where this was going and we are still waiting for 911 to arrive. I’ve relearned the healing power of touch and patience and love for strangers as demonstrated by doctors and nurses caring for those desperately fighting to stay alive. Personally, I fight to stay in touch with my 86 and 87 years old mom and dad so far away while my wife and I care for our nine years old daughter and my 98 years old mother-in-law. We will go on. We will go on because the alternative is too bleak to fathom. I will go on because I want to experience all of us at zero and when the buzzer sounds, we all make our way living unencumbered by hate, fear nor obstacle benign.
Pricing:
- Two Movie Bundle $30.00
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://www.thesilenceisbroken.org
- Instagram: @gpgsib
- Facebook: facebook.com/thesilenceisbrokn
- Twitter: @silenceisbrokn
Image Credits
Chaz Bowie
