Love. With that single word, rising and falling in a simple melody, wafting out from the choir over the audience at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra rekindled its historic King Celebration concerts earlier this month.
The word emerged from tumultuous cacophony at the end of Joel Thompson’s “An Act of Resistance,” a work that grapples with an epidemic of anger. Thompson has written that the music creates a space where listeners can “rebuild the strength necessary to love,” which he calls “a necessity for a world that lacks empathy and forgiveness.”
Thompson’s composition helped the ASO, in partnership with Ebenezer Baptist, revive the symphony’s long-running King Celebration concert earlier this month. The concert premieres for on-demand streaming beginning at 10 a.m. Monday at EbenezerATL.org, ASO.org and GPB.org. WABE 90.1 will air an hourlong program at 8 p.m. that evening.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Atlanta Symphony Orchestra/Rand Lines
Credit: Photo courtesy of Atlanta Symphony Orchestra/Rand Lines
For the concert, the orchestra and members of the ASO Chorus joined together Jan. 4 in the church’s sanctuary with members of the church’s choir, led by conductor Jonathan Taylor Rush. The combined ensembles performed gospel and spiritual songs including “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” “Let Freedom Ring” and “Praise Ye the Lord” alongside compositions by Atlanta-bred composers Thompson and Carlos Simon. Additional guests included singers Tamika Patton, Gregory Porter and Timothy Miller. Violinist Waverly Alexander, a high school junior and member of the ASO’s Talent Development Program, performed “Adoration” by Florence Price. Sen. Raphael Warnock, the church’s senior pastor, and Bernice King both offered words to mark the occasion.
“I am truly grateful to God for how everyone collaborated, how all of us came together to put together such a wonderful concert in the span of about 12 weeks,” said Patrice Turner, Ebenezer’s director of worship and the arts, who used the words “overwhelming, wonderful and warm” to sum up the evening. “So many people on Sunday morning after service wanted to talk to me about the concert. … They were so excited.”
The King Celebration is a resuscitation of the concert series that had a formidable beginning. The tradition began on a seasonably cold evening in January 1993, when soprano Jessye Norman took the stage, accompanied by piano, to help celebrate the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. She performed Richard Strauss lieder and “The Confession Stone” by Robert Fleming before the glee clubs of Morehouse and Spelman colleges joined to sing “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and other spirituals.
Through the years, touchstone performances emerged in various genres, including “New Morning for the World,” which Joseph Schwantner composed using text from King’s speeches, and Maya Angelou’s recitation of “A Pledge to Rescue Our Youth.” In 1997, the ASO moved the celebration to the Morehouse campus, where, in 1999, the amassed ensembles first performed Uzee Brown Jr.’s arrangement of “We Shall Overcome,” a concert coda to this day.
In 2006, the ASO celebrated its former composer in residence, T.J. Anderson, by performing his “Slavery Documents 2″ alongside selections from his 1979 choral work “Spirituals.” When he joined up with the symphony in the late 1960s, Anderson became the first Black composer in residence of a major American orchestra. The King Celebration ended sometime after the 25th anniversary concert, which featured Kathleen Battle.
Wanda Yang Temko has sung in the ASO Chorus for more than 30 years. This year, she said, the combination of voices “united as one and each bearing our own individuality with pride and love.”
“It was an exhilarating experience to watch and hear excellence in so many genres,” the soprano said.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Atlanta Symphony Orchestra/Rand Lines
Credit: Photo courtesy of Atlanta Symphony Orchestra/Rand Lines
While the revival of the concerts had been casually discussed at the ASO for a number of years, the Ebenezer concert started with a chance encounter. Ashley Mirakian, the symphony’s vice president of marketing and communications, said a summer meeting between ASO Executive Director Jennifer Barlament and Rev. Warnock served as the genesis of the collaboration.
“They wanted to have a joyous noise in the space, and we were thrilled by the invitation, so we got to work,” she said. “To see it come together so quickly and so well, just shows what a wonderful partnership we have.”
The 2025 version of the concert was truly a collaborative experience. Representatives from the ASO and Ebenezer worked together to develop a program that celebrated the thrill, without shying away from the pain, of progress.
“I do see us continuing to do this event in January as part of our overarching King celebration,” Turner said. “It’s a way to show that we can continue to encourage ourselves in these moments, while we’re still fighting for justice and looking for a peaceful world and for Dr. King’s dream, which has really become a lot of people’s dream, to really be manifested.”
To end the evening, Turner joined the ensembles as a soloist for an emotionally overwhelming version of “For Every Mountain.” Rush exited the podium only to quickly emerge to lead an encore of “We Shall Overcome.” The audience stood, many of them swaying back and forth, locked arm in arm, singing words of determination, inspiration and love.
CONCERT BROADCAST
King Celebration
On-demand streaming begins at 10 a.m. Monday at EbenezerATL.org, ASO.org and GPB.org. WABE 90.1 will air an hourlong program at 8 p.m. Monday.
Also: The world premiere of “On Mars” by Joel Thompson, who was featured in the King Celebration, will be performed by mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton in a 3 p.m. Sunday concert at Clayton State University’s Spivey Hall. spiveyhall.org
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