"A King Celebration" is a two-part series on Performance Today that aired on Friday, January 15th and Monday, January 18th. The programs were recorded at live concert events during the week of January 10th in Atlanta. On Friday the 15th, the first hour featured chamber music recordings, and the second hour musical highlights from church services at Ebenezer Baptist Church on Sunday, January 10th.

On Monday, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Yoel Levi, was joined by various local glee clubs and choirs to perform the world premiere of Uzee Brown, Jr.'s dramatic symphonic arrangement of We Shall Overcome, as well as Duke Ellington's Les Trois Rois Noirs and other great works.

Friday, January 15

Hour 1-- Performance Today Live from Atlanta: This day would have been Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 70th birthday, and Martin Goldsmith and the PT crew were in Atlanta for the first of two broadcasts from King's hometown. In the first hour we featured music by R. Nathaniel Dett, William Grant Still, Hale Smith, and Duke Ellington from a chamber concert at the Park Street Church Music and Arts Complex at Clark Atlanta University.

MUSICAL PROGRAM:

R. NATHANIEL DETT: Juba Dance from In the Bottoms Suite
HOWARD SWANSON: The Cuckoo
WILLAM GRANT STILL: Three Visions
Dark Horseman*Summerland*Radiant Pinnacle

Mark Boozer, piano

HOWARD SWANSON: The Negro Speaks of Rivers, A Death Song

Uzee Brown Jr., baritone
Jefferson Ethridge, piano

HALE SMITH: Faces of Jazz
Thamyris:
Paul Brittan, flute
Laura Gordy, piano

WILLIAM BANFIELD: Can't We All Get Along?
Thamyris:
Paul Brittan, flute/piccolo
Ted Gurch, clarinets, saxophone
Peggy Benkeser, percussion
Mike Cebulski, percussion

DUKE ELLINGTON, arr. Tillis: Mood Indigo, Take the A Train Clark Atlanta University Vocal Jazz Ensemble
Glynn Halsey, director
Stephen McPherson, piano
Wylie Hughes, bass
Corey Rawles, percussion

Hour 2-- We continued our live broadcast from Atlanta with musical highlights from Sunday, Jan. 10th's church service at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the late Dr. King (like his father and grandfather) served as pastor.

Monday, January 18

Hour 1-- Performance Today's Martin Goldsmith hosted the program from the Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel on the campus of Morehouse College, Dr. King's alma mater. In this hour, we heard the talents of four local vocal ensembles--the Glee Clubs of Morehouse College and Spelman College, the Wendell D. Whalum Community Chorus, and the Ebenezer Baptist Church Choir. And conductor Yoel Levi led the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in performances of works including Les Trois Rois Noirs, (The Three Black Kings) by Duke Ellington, who would have turned 100 this year.

Hour 2-- A King Celebration and a World Premiere: In this hour, we continued our broadcast of "A King Celebration" from Atlanta with two performances by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra: the Short Symphony by African-American composer and Atlanta native Howard Swanson and Joseph Schwantner's New Morning for the World, in which a narrator spoke the words of Dr. King. For the finale, the four choruses and the Atlanta Symphony joined forces for the world premiere performance of a work commissioned by NPR and the Atlanta Symphony for the event, a symphonic version of We Shall Overcome in an arrangement by Uzee Brown, Jr., the current music director of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

CONCERT PROGRAM FOR "A KING CELEBRATION 1999"

PERSONNEL

ATLANTA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Yoel Levi, Music Director

EBENEZER BAPTIST CHURCH CHOIR Dr. Uzee Brown, Jr., Music Director

MOREHOUSE COLLEGE GLEE CLUB Dr. David Morrow, Director

SPELMAN COLLEGE GLEE CLUB Dr. Norma Raybon, Director

WENDELL P. WHALUM COMMUNITY CHORUS Dr. David Morrow, Director

MARTIN GOLDSMITH, Host, NPR’s Performance Today

Various: Traditional Hymns, Spirituals & Gospel selections
Ebenezer Baptist Church Choir

R. Nathaniel Dett/arr. Hale Smith: The Chariot Jubilee (1916) Morehouse, Spelman Glee Clubs; Wendell P. Whalum Chorus; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

William Banfield: Symphony No. IV (excerpt) (1992) Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington: Les Trois Rois Noirs (Three Black Kings) (1974) Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

Howard Swanson: Short Symphony (1948) Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

Joseph Schwantner: New Morning for the World (Daybreak of Freedom) (1982)

Trad/Arr. Uzee Brown, Jr.: We Shall Overcome (1998*)
Ebenezer Baptist Church Choir; Morehouse, Spelman Glee Clubs; Wendell P. Whalum Chorus; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

*World Premiere: Commissioned by NPR and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra