Description
Proof of Identity will be available for public purchase in September 2027. Recording coming soon!
Draft program notes:
Queerness (in the anti-assimilationist sense) is built on countless things. And I’m not usually one to speak in absolutes, but I think for many of us who have spent years finding ourselves (sometimes again and again and again), two of the building blocks are often dreams and resolve. The act of self-discovery is necessarily predicated on a willingness to look for what rings true; maintaining that sense of self, once it’s materialized, requires dedication in the face of opposition.
Exercising this resolve is a daily act of calisthenics for queer and trans people, a mandatory reckoning of the risks inherent to owning our Othered identities in our day-to-day lives. Sometimes, we make hard choices to improve our chances of making it home safely. Other times, we are labeled threats and punished accordingly no matter what we do.
In this era where queer exterminationists are gaining ground, political fearmongering is just one face of the problem. Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer people are disappeared in vast quantities and Black transfems (and cisgender Black women deemed “not feminine enough”) are criminalized and killed with alarming regularity. Trans people have to become legal scholars just to cross a state line or use a restroom. Queer parents (and parents of queer children) have their fitness questioned time and time again. Nonbinary people are categorically shut out of ever having correct documentation, and our intersex siblings are quite literally scarred by legislative carve-outs specifically designed to strip them of the right to consent to their own medical procedures. Aromantics are pathologized and punished for eschewing the relationship escalator. Asexuals and lesbians experience the horrors of “corrective rape;” incarcerated transfems are sacrificed through v-coding.
The long shadow of the white supremacist eugenics movement which shaped turn-of-the-20th-century queerphobia looms over us all. Even as I write this, I can hear its soft hiss of a slur from times gone by: “invert….”
But regardless of the evils staring us down, regardless of the shitty compromises we might have to make to protect ourselves and those around us, we must keep dreaming ourselves alive. The ability to assert our own existence and thwart queer exterminationists is a vital skill, whether it looks like open defiance or calculated choices behind the scenes. The United States aims to rip our identities from our hands and disappear us into the carceral system once our documents can no longer defend us. We must refuse to lose still more generations of queers in unmarked, misidentified, forgotten, and desecrated graves, and we must do so by turning the tide and changing the minds of those who wish us erased.
And the artists among us have a duty to document, so the future does not forget how the government chose to de-person us by shredding our every attempt to identify ourselves.
A quick note about the voices featured in the fixed media:
Along with the consortium you’ll find credited below, I owe an immense debt of gratitude to my loved ones who lent their voices to the fixed media track for Proof of Identity: Jeff Wrenbeck, Ashley Killam, Nick Palmisano, Brianne Borden, and Nick St. Croix. Each entered my life in a different way—a guildie, a commissioner, a teammate, a teacher, a classmate turned reader of my blog—and each has left an indelible mark on my soul. In Proof of Identity, they call me many things: names I’ve gone by in video games (and mispronunciations thereof), roles I’ve played in their lives, and words they associate me with. I did not hand them a list, just a general prompt and free rein. I so appreciate their vulnerability, commitment, and love, both during this project and always. To further honor them, the fixed media track includes field recordings from significant places I’ve shared with each of them, including Tempe, Arizona; the Pacific Northwest; the Detroit metropolitan area; and Conway, Arkansas. None of these people are related to me by blood, and all have had profound impacts on my life.
Notes to the performers:
Percussion list: 1 splash cymbal, 1 sizzle cymbal (or suspended cymbal + sizzler), 1 china cymbal, floor tom, snare drum (played both snares on and snares off), 3 woodblocks, thunder sheet (or thunder tube), shredder (optional). Implements: sticks, light mallets, soft yarn mallets, potentially a coin or other rigid implement for scraping.
The shredder in the percussion part is optional—if you are unable to obtain one for your performance, the shredders in the fixed media track will be sufficient.
Microphones for both trumpeter and percussionist are strongly recommended, to help balance the instruments against the playback. (Realistically, they are required.)
Mute substitutions are acceptable and welcomed.
(Full performance notes, including notes on characterization and affect, will be available in the full score.)
Many thanks to the consortium members who made this piece possible:
Anne McNamara, consortium lead | Wyatt Calcote | Ryan Valdivia | Ryan Gardner | Rowyn Belt | Raquel Samayoa, University of North Texas | Matthew Onstad | Luke Spence | Louie Eckhardt | Julia Stowell | Julia Bell | Jennifer Oliverio | Jay Langsdale | Evelyn Szilagyi | Emma Gierszal | Carrie Blosser | Brianne Borden | Ben Stiers | Ashley Killam | Amanda Ross | Alex Wilson
Known performances:
Got one I’m missing? Let me know! (And performers: if you see a name on here you no longer use, I will fix it! Please send me an email with your old name, what you’d like it changed to, and where it appears.)
- 9/11/2026, Anne McNamara and Ben Stiers, Illinois State University, Normal, IL (world premiere).
About the cover photo:
Taken by me in 2026.
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