Music can have the power to promote activism and effect positive social change. This is especially true when examining the musical aspects of the 1950s and 60s Civil Rights movements, as well the social changes occurring in the twenty-first century through the Black Lives Matter movement since the 2010s. The Cummer Museum of Arts and Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida presented such an example of applying civil rights through music via a recreation of a “freedom concert” from the mid twentieth century to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. These concerts, advocated by his wife and activist Coretta Scott King, often featured music, poetry and lectures all dedicated to overcoming racial discrimination through nonviolence. The musical concert which I witnessed consisted of varied genres performed by soprano Alison Buchanan and American pianist Kevin Sharpe of the Ritz Chamber Players.
In addition to featuring spirituals, African folk songs, and songs about liberation from oppression, the concert program also consisted of music by Black composers. More specifically, it featured classical music by Samuel Coleridge Taylor (1875-1912), Margaret Bonds (1913-1972), and Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941). Their pieces chosen for the program applied modern, virtuosic arrangements of African American songs and spirituals: from the piano arrangement of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” by Taylor, to the “Theme and Variations” approach to “Wade in the Water” via Troubled Water by Bonds. The program also contained Margaret Bonds’ musical settings of poetry by Langston Hughes and a fragment from the Adolphus Hailstork song cycle Songs of Love and Justice (1992). That specific piece shares some similarities with his Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed, in that Hailstork uses written texts and speeches from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Of the four songs in Songs of Love and Justice, the performers chose the third song (“Decisions”) for its relevance in the 2020s and overall message of encouragement for a better future… if people are willing to make the right choices in life to establish the path to peace.
In addition to featuring spirituals, African folk songs, and songs about liberation from oppression, the concert program also consisted of music by Black composers. More specifically, it featured classical music by Samuel Coleridge Taylor (1875-1912), Margaret Bonds (1913-1972), and Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941). Their pieces chosen for the program applied modern, virtuosic arrangements of African American songs and spirituals: from the piano arrangement of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” by Taylor, to the “Theme and Variations” approach to “Wade in the Water” via Troubled Water by Bonds. The program also contained Margaret Bonds’ musical settings of poetry by Langston Hughes and a fragment from the Adolphus Hailstork song cycle Songs of Love and Justice (1992). That specific piece shares some similarities with his Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed, in that Hailstork uses written texts and speeches from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Of the four songs in Songs of Love and Justice, the performers chose the third song (“Decisions”) for its relevance in the 2020s and overall message of encouragement for a better future… if people are willing to make the right choices in life to establish the path to peace.
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