Jason Meeks is the Director of Entertainment at the USA National Pavilion. Despite facing some well-documented financial setbacks, the Yanks have managed to put together an impressive entertainment lineup including jazz legend Herbie Hancock and actor/musician Harry Connick, Jr. TALK’s Larry Miller sat down with Meeks to get the scoop on the upcoming National Day festivities and learn about life as an Expo employee.

What does the USA Pavilion have in store for their designated National Day on 2 July?

The University of Southern California Marching Band will be putting on a parade through the Expo Grounds and there will also be a National Performance at night featuring a duet between Harry Connick, Jr. and Chinese singer, Zhu Hua.

I imagine it was a bit of a disappointment that you weren’t able to schedule your Expo National Day on the 4 July.

It actually works better this way as having it on 2 July frees up a lot of performers and audience who would otherwise be somewhere else on the fourth. Also, scheduling it on the second allows us to extend our National Day through the whole weekend.

One of the tenets of the Pavilion’s mission is to promote diversity. How did you incorporate that mission into the performances?

One of the performers coming for National Day is opera singer, Angela Brown. She’s doing a show called “We Are One”. The performance is accessible to all audiences so it challenges the normal conventions of opera. Also, Abigail Washburn, a banjo-playing folk singer who sings in Mandarin – in addition to English – is performing. In some ways, she’s the nexus of Eastern and Western cultures.

Most of the performers that come to the Pavilion don’t get paid. Was it hard to find enough acts to fill the Pavilion’s schedule?

Not really. Most of the acts performing at the Pavilion are on tour or in China already for another function, so we just work with them to make arrangements. The US theme for the Expo is ‘Rising to the Challenge’ and this means rising to the challenge of running an entertainment program on a very, very limited budget. I’ve been lucky to work with a crew that’s been incredibly helpful and incredibly creative in this regard.

National Day Schedule:

4:30-5:30pm: University of Southern California Marching Band

8pm, Red Hall Stage: Harry Connick, Jr.

 July 4 Schedule:

2-3pm, Music Club in Cultural Center: Abigail Washburn

6-7pm, Music Club in Cultural Center: Angela Brown

 All events are free with Expo Admission. Please RSVP by July 1 for July 4 concerts by emailing name(s) of attendee(s) to [email protected].