Performance

My Country ’Tis of Thee

0 upcoming performances in New York

“My Country ’Tis of Thee,” often called “America,” is a 19th-century patriotic song with lyrics by Samuel Francis Smith, written to a melody borrowed from Britain’s “God Save the King.” For years it functioned as an unofficial national anthem in the United States, before “The Star-Spangled Banner” was formally adopted in 1931. In New York, it reads differently: a civic hymn shaped by immigrant ears and public-school choruses, with no single premiere history to claim. At LPR during Winter Jazzfest, Freedom Riders with Arturo O’Farrill and Adegoke Steve Colson reframes its familiar cadence in a Rock/Pop setting, letting the song’s borrowed tune become part of its meaning.