VocalEssence: WITNESS

VocalEssence: WITNESS brings another innovative achievement to Ordway Center for the Performing Arts with a musical tribute to Rosa Parks. Continuing their commitment to contemporary composers, VocalEssence commemorates Parks’ extraordinary strength in Hannibal Lokumbe’s Dear Mrs. Parks. Lokumbe’s masterpiece incorporates African and African-American idioms to create a powerful blend of voices praising Parks’ courage and expressing a hope for freedom.

WITNESS also expands on Lokumbe’s themes with a collection of freedom songs from around the world, including “Oh Freedom,” “We Shall Overcome” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” as well as a movement from “Canto General” by Mikis Theodorakis and the Argentinean protest song “Todavia Cantamos (Still We Sang)” by Victor Heredia. In this celebration of music’s power to bring social change, VocalEssence heralds the universal strength of the human spirit as expressed through the realm of music.

The concert features the full 130-voice VocalEssence Chorus with orchestra and soloists, including Jevetta Steele, who sang the world premiere of Dear Mrs. Parks with the Detroit Symphony in February, 2005, and baritone Kevin Deas.

Groups: 651-282-3111
TDD: 651-282-3100

$15.00 Student Rush tickets are available 15 minutes before curtain.