How Saturday's Missouri Symphony concert will deliver the sound of Juneteenth
Before playing or singing a single note Saturday night, members of the Missouri Symphony Orchestra and an impressive cadre of guest singers will tune.
They will tune to the freedom cries of enslaved people which rose up more than 150 years ago; tune to the lives of composers, teachers and musicians who walked artistic paths before them. Then, during the concert, they will keep tuning to each other, sounding the truth that we live out our freedom together.
As part of its Hot Summer Nights festival, the Symphony will present Singing in the Key of Freedom at Missouri Theatre. The concert celebrates Juneteenth, a holiday marking the functional end of slavery. Juneteenth refers to June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers delivered good news to enslaved people in Texas — they had been declared free.
"This news came two months after the end of the Civil War and years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed enslaved people on paper but not right away in reality," guest conductor Brandon Boyd said in an email.
Saturday's concert features "patriotic hymns, Gospel songs, secular popular music, Ragtime opera excerpts, Black folk songs, as well as non-idiomatic classical works of black composers," said Boyd, an assistant professor of choral conducting and choral music education at the University of Missouri.
The program's deep, wide repertoire represents Boyd's belief that "the music of the Black tradition is some of the most important stories when it comes to understanding this country's history."
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"This concert will explore how Black musicians have secularized the sanctified with expressive vocals, stirring lyrics, and deep rhythmic feeling, drawn from their classical roots and found freedom in being free to write from their hearts," he said.
Singing in the Key of Freedom is a "sister concert" to recent Odyssey Chamber Music Series-hosted programs focused on spirituals, Boyd said.
Boyd is the perfect person to guide the program, Symphony executive director Trent Rash said. A "mesmerizing" presence, Boyd not only curates a strong concert, but conveys the music's purpose with great passion, he added.
"He truly has a drive for what he believes in," Rash said.
Saturday, Boyd will unite the orchestra and a group of guest singers hailing from across the United States. Guest soloist NaGuanda Nobles, nicknamed "The HighArt Diva," has performed in the U.S. and Europe with operas and orchestras; perhaps most notable, she has sung with the London Symphony and alongside jazz lion Wynton Marsalis and the Boston Symphony.
Singing in the Key of Freedom also finds Boyd tuning to his personal musical history. He first heard the work of Black musicians performed by an orchestra at age 18. The piece, a Roland Marvin Carter arrangement of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," preceded Carter's great influence on Boyd's career.
Boyd also counts his graduate conducting professor, Andre J. Thomas, as a formative figure. Earlier this month, Boyd and Nobles — among others — traveled to London with Thomas, where they performed works by Black composers with the London Symphony Orchestra.
There, Boyd witnessed Thomas "sharing the music of our ancestors with the world's top musicians and singers," he said. Such experiences reshape their audiences, Boyd said, an effect he expects to repeat Saturday.
Bringing Nobles and other guest singers into conversation with the Symphony "will blend colors that we just can't achieve with piano alone," he said.
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Boyd eagerly anticipates the musical moments set to arrive Saturday, including a medley of Walter Hawkins tunes, orchestrated by Joseph Joubert, who Boyd called "one of the finest orchestrators in this world."
He also can't wait to hear Nobles sing Brandon Waddles' arrangement of "He's Got The Whole World In His Hand."
"This is a really unique setting with luscious jazz harmonies yet sincere treatment of this folk tune that doesn't distract from the heart of the message," Boyd said.
Boyd didn't learn about Juneteenth until college, he said. Bringing its sound, spirit and history to bear this weekend, he hopes to underline a significant message.
"I see this event as a celebration and reminder that we are free and need to live as free people, not only Black people but all people," he said.
Doors for Saturday's concert open at 6 p.m.; tickets are $25. Visit https://themosy.org/summer-music-festival/ for more details.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: How Saturday's Missouri Symphony concert will deliver the sound of Juneteenth
