Virginia orchestra will stream annual MLK celebration
NORFOLK — The Virginia Symphony Orchestra is paying homage to civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by streaming its “Songs for a Dreamer” concert.
Starting Monday, the concert will be available on the VSO’s YouTube channel for 45 days.
Presented in collaboration with the City of Norfolk and VSO’s HARMONY Project (a collaboration with 10 historically black churches throughout Hampton Roads), this year’s concert will include welcoming remarks by Mayor Kenneth Cooper Alexander, an invocation delivered by Pastor Robert Lee of Collinswood Agape Baptist Church and excerpts from inspiring speeches made by King will be recited by Pastor Jerome Barber of Sixth Mt. Zion Baptist Temple and Pastor Geoffrey Guns of Second Calvary Baptist Church.
A string quartet — featuring VSO musicians Simon Lapointe, Seiko Syvertsen, Alexandra Takasugi, and Rebecca Gilmore Phillips – will also perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing ” with featured vocal soloist Gregory Gardner of Norfolk State University, George Walker’s “Lyric for Strings,” the African American hymn “He Looked Beyond My Faults” and Adolphus Hailstork’s “Adagio for Strings.”
Norfolk native Gardner has performed locally, nationally, and internationally in opera, musical theater, oratorio, and concert productions and teaches voice at NSU.
The VSO’s annual Dreamer Award will be presented to Beverly Kane Baker, a former principal violist of the orchestra “based on her outstanding example of the King legacy relative to areas of diversity and inclusion and furthering their impact in the orchestral arena,” a news release from the orchestra said.
“A passionate advocate of diversity in the arts, she works with organizations including the Gateways Music Festival and the Sphinx Organization that connect, inspire, and mentor young people of color in classical music,” the release said of Baker.
The VSO’s Harmony Project church partners include First Baptist South Hill in Chesapeake, Sixth Mt. Zion Baptist Temple in Hampton, Agape Baptist Church in Portsmouth, East End Baptist Church in Suffolk, First Baptist Church Denbigh and Carver Memorial Presbyterian Church in Newport News, and First Baptist Church Bute Street, Second Calvary Baptist Church, Bank Street Memorial Baptist Church and Calvary Revival Church in Norfolk.
For more information, visit virginiasymphony.org/MLKtribute.