Let Freedom Sing! Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration with the Nashville Symphony | What’s happening in Nashville

Let Freedom Sing! Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration with the Nashville Symphony


*The event has already taken place on this date: Sun, 01/19/2020
The 27th annual Let Freedom Sing concert honors the life, legacy and triumphs of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. Joined by special guests, the Nashville Symphony, Celebration Chorus and Celebration Youth Chorus perform an inspiring selection of classical works, songs, traditionals and more. Arrive early for pre-concert presentations and exhibits by the National Museum of African American Music, the Nashville Public Library’s Civil Rights Room, and Choral Arts Link.

Please help us keep this calendar up to date! If this activity is sold out, canceled, or otherwise needs alteration, email mindy@kidsoutandabout.com so we can update it immediately. If you have a question about the activity itself, please contact the organization administrator listed below.

Program includes:
Adolphus Hailstork – I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes
Bryson Finney – We Are Nashville
George Walker – Lyric for Strings
Stephen Schwartz – When You Believe from The Prince of Egypt
Margaret Bonds – March from Montgomery Variations

Doors open at 5:30 pm.

American Sign Language interpretation provided by Bridges for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

Captioning provided by Tennessee Captioning. 

If you are making a group ticket reservation for an organization, click here to make your reservation. NOTE: Our group ticket policy has changed. Please read all details on the submission form. 


EXPERIENCE THESE PRE-CONCERT ACTIVITIES:

“From Nothing to Something” Presented by the National Museum of African American Music
From Nothing to Something is a presentation demonstrating how people of different cultures created instruments from memory using limited resources. These instruments were literally made out nothing (household items or natural materials) and were used to create something wonderful – music. Concert attendees will be able to see and hear the following in the lobbies of the Schermerhorn:

  • West Lobby: Spoons 
  • Balcony Lobby: Spoken Word
  • East Lobby: World Percussion


Nashville Public Library Civil Rights Room
 
View an exhibit documenting the Nashville Sit-Ins in the East Gallery, adjacent to the East Lobby.

Choral Arts Link and Versify Present: From the Back of the Bus
Choral Arts Link is collaborating with WPLN’s poetry podcast Versify to honor the Nashville Freedom Riders. Presenting their experiences in story form, this project depicts their impact on Nashville’s role in this nation’s Civil Rights Movement. 

Versify engaged Nashville Freedom Riders to tell their stories to local poets, who then transformed their stories into poetry. These poems are shared in three settings:

  • In partnership with Nashville Symphony, each Freedom Rider will be featured on a commemorative banner on display in the Main Lobby. The full poems and biographies are available at the reception table.
  • These commemorative banners will travel to the Fisk University Chapel and be on display as part of a “Witness Walk” during the Upon These Shoulders concert, presented on February 15, 2020, by Choral Arts Link, Intersection and Fisk University. “From the Back of the Bus” is the theme for this year’s presentation of Upon These Shoulders and stands as a metaphor for both the oppression and victory of the Civil Rights Movement.
  • The conversations and poems will also be used to construct a fourth season of Versify as a “then-and-now” retrospective honoring the 60th anniversary of the Nashville sit-ins and looking at contemporary Nashvillians who are party to or beneficiaries of the Freedom Riders’ legacy. Versify’s fourth season is scheduled to launch in April 2020.

Post-Concert Panel Discussion: Art and Activism
Stay in Laura Turner Hall after the performance for an onstage panel discussion featuring Choral Arts Link director Margaret Campbelle-Holman, composer Adolphus Hailstork, tenor Roderick L George, and conductor Dr. Henry Panion III, with poet Joshua Moore moderating.


*Times, dates, and prices of any activity posted to our calendars are subject to change. Please be sure to click through directly to the organization’s website to verify.

Organization:

Nashville Symphony

Location:

Schermerhorn Symphony Center One Symphony Place
Nashville, TN, 37201-2031
United States

Phone:

615.687.6565
Contact name: 
Dave Felipe Publicist
The event has already taken place on this date: 
01/19/2020
Time: 
7 PM