The Foreign Service Journal, December 2020

40 DECEMBER 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Avis Bohlen Award for a Foreign Service Family Member William “Rick” Bassett Creating Community Through Music in Liberia S ince September 2018, musician Rick Bassett has been an anchor of the U.S. embassy community in Monrovia, Liberia, according to Christine Elder, who served as the U.S. ambassador there until March. Mr. Bassett—an award-winning professional composer and orchestrator with numerous Broadway credits— has been creative and generous in sharing his time and excep- tional talents to provide joyful interludes for American, Liberian and international colleagues there. In the embassy’s first official Locally Employed Staff Apprecia- tion Day, Mr. Bassett directed a chorus of American embassy staff, including Marines, in a choral performance, that featured his new arrangement of “My Favorite Things,” from “The Sound of Music,” in honor of the Embassy Monrovia local staff. Here is a sample lyric: Memos and emails and cultural advising Training, maintaining, and much organizing For all the things they do on our behalf Thank you to all the Liberian staff! Guard force and RSO keep us protected ISC keeps our computers connected Mailroom brings packages tied up with strings These are a few of my favorite things! “The effort to create such a unique ‘thank you’ was a gesture that our more than 350 LE staff— many of whom have been with the embassy for decades through civil wars and the Ebola epi- demic—appreciated to the depths of their souls,” Ambassador Elder says of Mr. Bassett. – EXEMPLARY PERFORMANCE – Rick Bassett, in blue shirt, poses with performers from his musical “Hope” in Uganda in 2019. From left to right: Byamugisha Gilbert, Bassett, Tayo Shonubi and Tamale Michael Patrick. Mr. Bassett provided piano accompaniment when Saycon Sengbloh, the Liberian-American TV and Broadway star, visited Liberia in 2018. He also assisted in establishing A Dya Zu Zu, a nongovernmental organization in Liberia that helps local artists. Because of the country’s deep historical ties and religious connections with the United States, many Liberians are famil- iar with both traditional and contemporary American gospel music. When the embassy hosted the U.S. gospel group “Oscar Williams and the Band of Life,” Mr. Bassett helped the public affairs section organize concerts and workshops that connected the group with local choirs and audiences. The free concerts and radio performances reached and inspired thousands of Liberians. The performances were all the more meaningful because they were the last embassy cultural events before the onset of the coronavirus in Liberia. During the most stressful days of the pandemic, Mr. Bassett put his talents to use by teaming up with the post’s temporary regional medical officer to create a five-minute recording com- bining calming music and a meditative script to help relieve stress in the embassy community.