King holiday needs more recognition, trio decided in starting concert
After feeling like the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday didn’t receive the recognition and reverence it deserved, a former public school choir director and two others decided to fix that perception through music.
When Kris Rust was director of choral activities at Franklin Regional High School, he said Martin Luther King Jr. Day sometimes felt “like a random day off.”
That was in 2008. Saturday evening marked the 15th annual Let Freedom Sing concert, held this year at the Wesley Center AME Zion Church in the Hill District.
“It didn’t feel like a holiday that we were celebrating as a country,” he said of the genesis of Let Freedom Sing. “I really think that what Dr. King emphasized about community and taking care of one another … standing up for justice and equity ... these are all things that we are still struggling with and still need to pay attention to.”
Mr. Rust, along with Herbert Jones and Vanessa German, came up with the Let Freedom Sing concept in the living room of Mr. Jones’ mother.
This year’s lineup included the MLK Festival Choir, along with Metropolitan Opera singer Chantal Braziel and Pittsburgh jazz singer Anqwenique Wingfield, all of whom performed without an audience for the second year in a row. The concert went online due to the continuing spread of the COVID-19 omicron variant.
This weekend was a time for people “to come together” and continue
the work that Dr. King and others have dedicated their lives to, Mr. Rust said.
“It is a celebration of community, in community, by community,” Mr. Jones said. “And what better way to celebrate than through music, which is literally the universal language.”
The MLK Festival Choir is made up of members from other community choirs across the city, including students from the Woodland Hills High School choir. Directed by Mr. Jones, the choir sang a mix of gospel music, Civil Rights-era
anthems and spirituals, punctuated with reminders of how people can make a difference.
“No matter what, at the end of the day we all have to remember that we have a responsibility,” Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey said at the beginning of the concert. “We have a responsibility to continue to fight for unity, continue to fight for peace and understanding … that the difference we make is the difference we make in the people that we touch.”
At Saturday’s performance, instead of guests being ushered to
their seats, two cameras were set up in the church to provide different angles of the performers to an audience viewing from home.
The virtual viewing didn’t stop the music or the performer’s excitement. Coming together even online was “better than not doing anything,” Mr. Rust said.
“It would be much nicer with a live audience, but a lot of it is just performing together, with some really, really talented people,” said Kurt Summersgill, of Regent Square, who performed in Saturday’s concert.