A Musical Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
by Benjamin Roe, Senior Music Producer of NPR's Performance Today

"Life's piano can only produce the melodies of brotherhood when it is recognized that the black keys are as basic, necessary, and beautiful as the white keys."

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Where do all the musical references in the speeches and writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. come from? The answer came to me the day I visited his boyhood home on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, steps away from the celebrated Ebenezer Baptist Church, pastored by his father, Daddy King. Dr. King may have been the son of a preacher, but he was also the son of a choir director. And when you walk in the King house, the first room you enter is an intimate front parlor, dominated by a battered old upright piano. This is the place where King's mother would lead the Ebenezer choir through weekly rehearsals, the place where Martin's fine, clear singing voice was noted by his father when he was barely four, and where he struggled through piano lessons.

Later, King would take his own place in the Ebenezer choir, join the prestigious Glee Club of Morehouse College, and marry a young New England Conservatory soprano named Coretta Scott.Forever after, it was the distinctly musical style of speaking that made Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. one of this century's greatest and most persuasive orators.

The musical core of Dr. King's life is what, I think, is the strength behind A King Celebration, and why in a few short years it has become one of NPR's most heavily anticipated broadcasts, both here and abroad. (The last two broadcasts have been picked up for worldwide distribution by the European Broadcasting Union.)

As a national holiday, Dr. King's birthday is still new enough that we have been spared the car sales and mattress ads, and we are still looking for ways to observe the message and meaning of Dr. King's life. I can't think of a better way than celebrating it in music - music that inspired him and that he in turn inspired - onstage with a world-class ensemble, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, direct from his hometown.