For David Driver, Music is a Way to Connect the Past with the Present

For David Driver, a song can be more than a song.

It can be a memory. A historical document. A way of seeing yourself when you’re growing up and looking for some indication that you belong.

And sometimes, it can be the starting point for an entire performance.

Driver has spent his career moving through musical worlds — Broadway, jazz, alternative pop and standards — working with artists including Laurie Anderson, Elvis Costello, Debbie Harry, and They Might Be Giants. He was also part of the original Broadway cast of Rent.

But some of his most personal work has come from putting music in conversation with stories and history.

On Sunday, Aug. 30, Driver will bring that approach to the Rock Valley Schoolhouse, a small, historic performance space where he plans to experiment with the room’s natural acoustics while using a combination of amplified and unamplified sound.

Driver says he has been drawn to the flexibility of the schoolhouse, where he has attended performances by other artists.

“I wouldn’t want to do just one thing,” Driver said when asked how he describes his musical identity.

Instead, he calls what he does “creative services,” with music as one part of that work.

That idea of moving between forms is particularly evident in There’s a Riot Going On! The Real Music & True Story of Stonewall, his multimedia project about the 1969 uprising at New York City’s Stonewall Inn.

The project began in 2019, when venues and performance organizations in New York were looking for ways to mark the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. Symphony Space approached Driver about creating a performance.

Rather than simply selecting songs that seemed appropriate to the period, Driver looked at what was actually playing on the jukebox at the Stonewall Inn when the uprising took place.

“I think that when music connects it’s such a personal thing. It’s almost a chemical thing, but when it connects, I think it just magnifies the strength of any feeling or any information that’s coming in for me,” He said. “So to combine sort of documentary factual information in a show like that with the deep intense emotion and sort of pathos of music. I think it sort of all redoubles on itself, if that makes sense.”

Ultimately, that may be what continues to draw Driver to the stage: the possibility that a performance can do more than entertain.

“For me it’s a real privilege to be able to do work and put something into the world that might shift people’s perspective, that might inspire people in some way, that might move people some in some way or or let them think or feel differently,” he said.

Image: David Driver will perform at Rock Valley Schoolhouse on August 30. He’ll be joined by Peter Keyser Walter, violinist Whitney LaGrange and Jeremy Chatzky. (theres-a-riot.com/)