“At 68, living in Texas, and a mystic of the most musical sort, [composer] Hannibal Lokumbe is in town as part of a Philadelphia Orchestra residency that will culminate with Healing Tones, a full-orchestra oratorio to be premiered by the orchestra in 2019,” writes Peter Dobrin in Monday’s (6/12) Philadelphia Inquirer. The composer’s two-year Music Alive residency with the Philadelphia Orchestra is funded by the League of American Orchestras and New Music USA. “In the meantime, he has written Crucifixion Resurrection: Nine Souls a Traveling, to be premiered Saturday, two years to the day after the murder of nine parishioners at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. The concert at Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church is to be part of a three-day series of performances and discussions…. The Philadelphia experience will begin with a ‘walk of love’ from Weccacoe Park—originally Mother Bethel’s burial ground—to the church for the premiere of the work for jazz trio, jazz trumpet, solo violin, vocalists, narrators, and choir.… Hannibal Lokumbe’s June events begin Thursday with an ‘Unveiling of the Saints,’ an evening of conversation and performance,” and a panel discussion, “Remembering Birmingham: Civil Rights and Constitutional Change.”
In photo: Composer Hannibal Lokumbe, left, sings with 10th grader Aliyah Taylor, right, during his visit to the Creative and Performing Arts High School in Philadelphia on May 30, 2017. Photographer: David Maialetti
Posted June 14, 2017
