(robust music) (upbeat music) - Can we come a little bit stage right?

(upbeat music) - [Participant 2] Places, everyone.

(upbeat music) (dramatic music) (attendees cheer and clap) - Good evening, everybody.

(attendees cheer and clap) Ah, good evening.

(attendees cheer and clap) My name is Kamilah Forbes.

I'm the Executive Producer of the Apollo Theater, and this is... - Sade Lythcott.

I am the CEO of the National Black Theatre.

Welcome to the Opera House at the Kennedy Center.

(orchestral music) - [Kamilah] Y'all ready?

(orchestral music) (participant chuckles) (orchestral music) (bright music) (orchestral music) - [Sade] It has been our mission to discover and develop the talents of music creators who will expand the very definition of American orchestral music.

- [Kamilah] This piece, this experience, this program tonight does not exist without each and every one of you being present.

You are The Gathering.

(orchestral music) (video reel clicking) - One, two, three, and.

(clapboard clicks) (attendees cheer and clap) (stick tapping) (singer vocalizing) (stick tapping) The origin story of The Gathering: A Collective Sonic Ring Shout, (singer vocalizing) came early in 2018, 2019.

(siren blaring) - You shot me.

- You shot me.

(siren blaring) - Joel Thompson had written a piece called "The Seven Last Words of the Unarmed".

That was gorgeous.

It was beautiful.

It was arresting.

It was, shook me at my core, and just thought, oh my gosh, we need to do this.

How can we do this?

And sometimes when you think about these big projects, it doesn't take one person, and many times, not one institution.

So, when we started to dream about like, well, what could this look like?

'Cause Joel's piece was big, it was expansive, but it was also only 10 minutes.

(Kamilah chuckles) (choir vocalizing) So, the question is, how could we infuse a theater with a transformative experience?

♪ Breathe ♪ Can't breathe ♪ Can't breathe - When Kamilah Forbes, the Executive Producer of the Apollo Theater, called me- - I said, hey, Jonathan, we're dreaming of this piece.

What do you think?

- And they wanna do the New York premiere of "The Seven Last Words of the Unarmed" by Joel Thompson.

- And Jonathan was like, "Absolutely."

And then, it was like, wait, wait, wait.

But it's Jonathan MBT, yes.

- Very soon after, as we do, when we wrap our arms around projects, we kinda wanna get to the heart of why this matters.

- There was a lot of collaborative discourse about how to tease this thing to be meaningful and how to make it be rooted in something that was real.

- Not just presenting an orchestral piece, but truly presenting a piece of transformation for our community.

- And there was no commissioning arm of this.

There was no calm response to this.

It was like, you need to turn that into an evening.

- This is a collaboration that was initiated between American Composers Orchestra, National Black Theatre, and the Apollo Theater.

One of the things that I love about this is that it was a collaboration that truly brought forward all of the strengths of all three institutions in a way that was truly beautiful.

- First of all, producing post-pandemic is a challenge.

It is a crisis of resources.

It is a crisis of imagination.

It is a crisis of business model.

And you see those as headlines every single day.

But we Black, y'all.

And our people have had to exist in impossible circumstances since the beginning of time.

And so, we as a community, we as an organization know that the impossible is I'm possible.

- One of the most exciting things about this project is its scope and size.

We had an 80-person orchestra, a 48-person choir.

And that is the sort of forces that is kinda rare to be able to invest in a project like this.

- Kam was like, "It's important for us to do this in this time, in this moment, the George Floyd, what happened to George Floyd, the effect of what had happened in the civic unrest of who we are."

And something just clicked.

- The Gathering as a concept of how we wanted to frame this event was born.

- I was invited to participate in The Gathering two years ago, and it was a wonderful experience at the Apollo Theater.

(orchestral music) I had never been to the Apollo Theater, and I'd only seen it on television.

- That is what a CEO is here to do, is to help us to understand that American music has been alive, well, and thriving all around orchestral stages.

- [Announcer] Welcome.

(attendees cheer and clap) (orchestral music) - [Kamilah] The Apollo has always been a space of amplifying Black voices, committing to the intersection of art and activism, and tonight is an exemplary example of that.

(Nona faintly speaking) (attendees cheer and clap) - Thank you, Apollo, my home.

Thank you.

- [Chelsea] To actually be on that stage in Harlem, ♪ Like the phoenix we will rise ♪ - bringing this incredible music together has been a real joy.

And to have a chance to do it again, especially in the Kennedy Center, is a real honor.

And I think it's gonna really open some eyes to, for some people.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Conductor 1] Four, five.

♪ Officers, why do you have your guns out ♪ ♪ Officers (piano music) - [Conductor 1] One, two, three, four, and.

♪ Officers, officers ♪ Why do you have your guns out ♪ ♪ Stop - You shot me.

- You shot me.

- You shot me.

- You shot me.

- You shot me.

- You shot me.

(video reel clicking) - In an effort to tap into my own humanity and the humanity of these men whose humanity was often eradicated in the wake of their deaths in order to justify their murders.

My name is Joel Thompson.

I'm the composer of the piece, "Seven Last Words of the Unarmed".

And I wrote that piece in 2014, 2015, in response to the Staten Island grand jury, choosing not to indict the officer that murdered Eric Garner.

And its position in The Gathering is one that sort of centers, I guess, what is our current reality in fighting against the scourge of police brutality.

The piece is rooted in the trauma of our community.

And to see it framed in such a beautiful way as a part of a journey from dark to light, from sorrow to joy, is really moving to me.

(orchestral music) The biggest obstacles that Black Americans have faced, yes, chattel slavery, yes, segregation, yes, mass incarceration, all of that, but it's the narrative that we are subhuman, that we are less than, and that this country was built on in order to justify the enslavement of fellow human beings.

And even though if you ask anyone, if they believe that they would deny it, it's baked into our laws, it's baked into our society, and the ways with which we interact with each other.

And to change that narrative is a part of the work that I feel that artists and activists in the space are trying to do.

Not necessarily to prove our humanity or prove our worth to a white paradigm, but really to say that we're here, we're not going anywhere.

We've been, we're all human.

Catch on, you know?

(laughs) - Yeah.

(attendees cheer and clap) (Toshi chuckles) Yeah.

(attendees cheering) - [Attendee 1] Yeah.

- Hey, hey.

Could it start with us?

Could it start with us?

All of this music is raising the vibration of the ancestors, raising the vibration of the ones that we know are with us, but are not on the earth anymore.

(video reel clicking) We have so much to do.

And can it start with us?

(rhythmic music) - Hey, hey, hey.

(rhythmic music) - You know, the vibration that landed me here, it's the vibration of my people.

It's the vibration of my ancestors.

How did they survive?

I don't know.

♪ Michael row your boat ashore, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Michael row your boat ashore, hallelujah ♪ Oh, yeah.

This is exciting.

I grew up in Washington, D.C., so I'm always excited to go there and do music.

And I don't think I've ever done anything with an orchestra in D.C. before, so this will be really exciting.

Last time we were there, we were doing "Parable of the Sower".

And at the Kennedy Center, I've done a lot of things there, but this will definitely be the biggest, the most like so many people type of show.

So, I'm very excited about it.

I'm very excited to work with Chelsea again.

- That's one of the hardest things about putting together a program, getting the right mix of people, and having to fit the narrative of the mission of the story that is trying to be transmitted.

(participants chattering) (everyone clapping) - I would just say an itty-bitty about this.

One, thank you very much.

And, two, when he goes into the other song, "My Name", it is the fear of the sails.

I asked Juliet to make the sails terrifying.

(soft upbeat music) "My Name" is a song where I'm looking at from the perspective of being in the motherland and knowing that there are slavers looking for you, and getting caught, and just trying to imagine a world before it happens, where someone would do something so hideous and violent and diabolical.

And what mechanism of technology were those people thinking about?

♪ Hey, hey, hey - It is business ♪ Hey, hey - for a country that was started on business using the currency of our people and the gorgeous planet Earth inside of the entire universe.

And it is us who need to guide it in the right direction.

Even though the treachery comes, that doesn't go away.

So, I start that off, almost like... ♪ Mm-hmm ♪ Mm-hmm It's like... ♪ You think you got me, but I am still here ♪ (orchestral music) ♪ I'm still playing like I'm alive ♪ ♪ I'm still playing like I'm alive ♪ ♪ Out in the street playing like I'm alive ♪ ♪ Out in the street playing like I'm alive ♪ ♪ Hmm, hmm-hmm ♪ Hmm, hmm-hmm (soft upbeat music) ♪ Out in the street playing like I can fly ♪ ♪ Out in the street playing like I can fly ♪ ♪ Out in the street playing ♪ Like I can fly Boom.

(soft upbeat music) - The crows rise, wisdom within the root.

Our people have been lift, lift, lifting like smog air and car horns.

Rub your temples, feel the balls of your feet press against the heat, and remember who you are.

Remember who you are, remember who's you are.

My role in this gathering, this specific chosen family gathering, was to provide the poetic interludes that tie together all of the musical soundscapes.

My name is Mahogany L. Browne, I'm a poet, I'm a writer, an organizer, a civic engagement practitioner, an advocate for the people, and an educator.

I know that when Jonathan is asking me to be a part of something, it is for the betterment of my nervous system.

So, it's always a yes.

(video reel clicking) When you feel confidence, step into it, huh?

When you find challenges, step into it.

Confidence requires our obedience.

Obedience is faith in fortified understanding.

This is a home return.

(dramatic music) Jonathan be home.

Trayvon and Emmett home, Breonna and Rekia home.

George and Iana home.

Come home, come be where the swing and swallows piece, where the flowers bloom together and hold, near the emptiest tethering, a trumpet, a horn, the symmetry of heresy in our hips.

This jubilation is bomb.

See us fight, see us flight, see us free.

I think what helped me create my work for The Gathering and from The Gathering is witnessing the camaraderie, right?

Being able to sit with Sister Nona Hendryx and learn from her.

Being able to read the work of Dr. Teer, and then talk to Sade about like, that's unheard of.

- One, two, three.

(orchestral music) (orchestral music continues) (video reel clicking) - Hi, I'm Carlos Simon, a composer.

Actually, I'm Composer-in-Residence here at John F. Kennedy Center.

(orchestral music) I wrote a piece on the program called "Amen", which is inspired by my lineage, my experience in the Black church, like Pentecostal Church to be specific.

And I wrote the piece to commemorate this cultural experience that is very much American.

And growing up in Pentecostal church, it's very spontaneous, it's charismatic, but it's also a worship experience, for those who are in the service.

So, this piece is meant to celebrate.

(group member laughing) (participant faintly speaking) (attendees clapping) - Hey, everybody, it's good to see you all, and then finally give this piece.

In this space, I'm composing resonance sphere, so it's special.

And this piece doesn't perform.

Okay.

Yeah.

So, it's celebratory, 'cause the ring shout, the phrase break, which is the last week, but it's the (indistinct) (orchestral music) It's a special piece to me because it's one that really directly goes to my lineage and my background, which for a long time, I was very ashamed of.

(orchestral music) (orchestral music continues) Just being grown up in the Black church and being a PK, and this being in that space, I didn't know how to interpret that in the orchestra, which is, think about orchestra, you think about Beethoven, you think about Bach, you think about these German composers, these dead White men.

And that of course it comes with a sound.

And the sound that I grew up with in my church was, didn't match the sound of Beethoven.

So, this piece sort of, for me, it was my first time blending those, the styles, the style of the Western gospel music along with the gospel music that I was playing.

And it's in three movements.

So, you think of it starts with trombones like the gospel choir, three-part harmony.

And they're singing like a gospel choir with every vibrato.

The second movement is really homage to my grandmother who would always sing before my father preached.

And then, she would sing a song, "I'll Take Jesus for Mine", and she would wreck the house with that song.

(orchestral music) (orchestral music continues) The third movement is called the praise break, which is a direct correlation or lineage from the ring shout.

(solemn instrumental music) (video reel clicking) - A ring shout is a form of religious song and movement.

Ring shouts are performed by persons who shuffle counterclockwise in a single file, in a circle, a ring.

The ring shout participants may also perform imitative movements to the words that are sung.

The accompaniment is provided by persons who stand to the side of the ring and sing while they clap their hands.

Traditionally, the only instrumental accompaniment for ring shouts was one man rhythmically beating a long stick on the ground.

- A ring shout is a call of faith.

There was a need a call for the ancestors because of the brutality of the slaveship.

And in order for the ancestors to hear, (ring shout music) you have to scream, you have to shout, you have to sing, you have to pray that they hear you.

It's a time for gratitude.

It's a time for remembrance, but it is also a time to recall and to remember, and to ask for healing, to ask for, to communicate with your ancestors, to communicate with your higher self and higher power.

- And it really is the foundational form for Black music.

And we think about the Gullah Geechee community, we really all came through that portal, either through Charleston or through Virginia as enslaved people.

And so, their culture is really the foundational Black culture of this country.

And I think of the ring shout is really the genesis of Black music from spirituals, blues, jazz, all the way up to contemporary Black music.

- But I know ring shouts to be spiritual moments outside of the physical edifices of churches that utilize word sound power to incant, to call, to elevate, and lift out, to be call and response-driven.

I know ring shouts to be awakenings, to be baptismal in nature, to be chemically as well as spiritually transformative.

I understand ring shouts to be centers of both joy and exhaustion.

(stick tapping) (video reel clicking) (stick tapping) - My name is Abby Dobson.

I am a sonic conceptual performing artist and composer, a scholar, and an activist.

♪ Sing I sing and I write about things that I care about.

I'm here today as an artist that was featured in The Gathering, a performance based on so many different works by Black composers about our lives as Black people rooted in tradition, the diet, the African diasporic tradition, to come together to share their works, to share their works of incredible power and resonance.

The work that speaks to just lived experiences as Black people in this country and beyond.

I always love when artists gather and when artists share who we are in ways that really shed light on who we are as a people.

♪ Cannot say ♪ Say her "Say Her Name", the song, is something that I composed in 2015, and it was inspired by the work of the African American Policy Forum and events that I saw.

There were gatherings, one in Union Station in New York, where family members of Black women and girls who'd been killed gathered, talking about the event that took their loved one away from them, and also about who they were.

And in that moment, I wanted to write a song that would speak to that experience.

♪ Oh-oh ♪ Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh ♪ Oh-oh It's a song that was created to remember, to remember as in to recall, but also to gather, if you will, or put together memories of the women that were killed and their stories, because we have to acknowledge their stories.

Shantel Davis, Atatiana Jefferson ♪ Say Rekia Boyd, Michelle Cusseaux, Meagan Hockaday, Eleanor Bumpurs, Deborah Danner, Mya Hall, Kayla Moore, ♪ Say Korryn Gaines, ♪ Her name Sandra Bland, Aiyana Stanley-Jones.

♪ Say ♪ Say ♪ Her name - The Gathering: A Place for Narrative Change, was the culmination of our complex partnership with the Kennedy Center.

It was a week-long program that amplified all of the social impact themes that we were uplifting within the concert, The Gathering.

What we understand is storytelling has the power to shape the hearts and minds, and to influence policy and culture.

And so, those are all narrative changes, right?

So, what we wanted to do at the Kennedy Center through this partnership was we wanted to honor our past.

We wanted to shift the narrative of this bright shining jewel of an American treasure, the Kennedy Center, and say it sits on the land.

We wanna change the narrative.

We wanna acknowledge that this sits on the land of Black communities.

That these stories, these ghosts, these narratives need to be uplifted.

That is a shift of perspective, that is a narrative change.

(video reel clicking) - Writing the land acknowledgement for the Foggy Bottom was, I think, similar in the sense that I wanted to interrogate those things that folks (chuckles) deem inappropriate and expendable, and disposable.

That's the magic of Foggy Bottom, the people, right?

And at first, I was writing it like it was magical and beautiful.

And the reality is the resilience is the beauty, but they really lived through quite despair.

And it was Jonathan giving me those archive tapes, sending me voice notes from young people then that grew up that are elders now, telling their stories of what it was like to jump over these potholes and these stinky alleyways, and why they had to stay there and live there, but also how much love was still there despite them being basically put into these (chuckles) gentrifiable spaces.

- Before you had the Kennedy Center there in that area we used to call Foggy Bottom, my ancestors called it of sort of Foggy Bottom because a mist comes up off the Potomac River.

And at that time, when later on when Europeans started to come in, they had different factories and industries.

It was a thriving community there in Foggy Bottom before everything was just leveled, so they could later on build the Kennedy Center and gentrify that area.

- And so, to listen to that story and to know that that is what's happening in Oakland, California, where I'm from, to know that that's what's happening in Detroit, to know that that is the tool of capitalism, it made it very easy for me to align what I know to be true and really think about them as a people before we had articulation for what was happening to them.

So, writing it was like a learning experience, but also like a soul searching experience.

- Right now as we speak, there is a rabid, vigorous fear-based campaign to shrink the narrative of our human condition to the smallest possible unit of measure.

The notion that the past and history are not the same things.

The relationship between banned books and the amplified spaces.

The relationship between who gets to vote and who gets to pray, and who they get to pray to.

All those things are part of the shrinking of the common narrative.

And if we're not careful, that effort will become law.

- Narrative change is all about changing the conversation, changing the constitution of a conversation.

Lots of times, you're not even changing the words, but you're changing the underlying meaning.

I believe that narrative change involves changing the context and the prisms on which we're seeing the world.

- I think the narrative change that we need as a society in this moment is the concept or the conversation around our ability to fellowship.

We are in a divisive moment in our society, which is causing us to live in silos instead of in community.

We used to be able to speak across the aisle.

We used to be able to hold our differences and still be able to love one another.

And I think right now, the narrative change that needs to show up is how are we being human with one another?

- To me, narrative change is really about the way that our stories can create spaces for justice and can create spaces for equity.

And so, centering Black stories is really the kind of impetus for social justice.

And so, it's really important that we do narrative change work through our art practice, which is allowing our stories to have space to do the work that sometimes even activism cannot do.

- I think it's most important that we have a say so over who we are remembered as when the world turns the page.

I think narrative change is the only way that history will make sense.

The longer we rely on textbooks of flawed humans to speak on the character of all humanity, then the more work we'll have to do later on.

- [Jonathan] I just wanna give context, 'cause we've been doing everything in isolation and we maybe not have had a holistic understanding, but The Gathering: A Sonic Ring Shout is a homage to those people who traveled on a ship in 1619, who were brought into slavery to build a capitalistic system of America.

And regardless of that, found their way to find their own liberation.

And we're here to liberate folks who have gone through a lot, (water ripples) (mouse clicks) through our sound, through our gift.

That is what I wanted to share.

I want to give that context.

So, I think it's important that we understand what we are here for, what we are being called to do.

(rhythmic music) (participants chattering) - Yes, yeah, yeah.

But (faintly speaks) Great.

For me personally as the director, conceiver, getting to this point, it's a little pinch me.

Throughout this, I've had to be humble and also be generous, and be very kind, and also not challenge my ego in a lot of ways.

Oh, thank you.

That would be one of the lasting elements that will ring with me in looking at this at this scale.

What does it mean to give, to allow a Black director to have the tools to birth full-scale concept and be able to do it at a scale that is not about lack, but about abundance.

Throughout the whole journey of doing this work, it's been really humbling.

- There were so many things that truly blew me away about Jonathan's process throughout the curation of this show, but one of them was the deep and unwavering connection to the spiritual processes that inspired this narrative.

So, to be able to look at the seven chakras and to know that we had seven works, and that they were sequenced in exactly this way, to know that each artist, whether it was Toshi Reagon or Nona Hendryx, was given a chakra color and also a sound, a pitch to be able to build their works around.

- And we also believe that we have a god force inside of us, a sound we can create and create life, can make the change, can generate new futures.

- [Performer] Where have you been traveling?

Where are you going?

Like the origin story, resounding off key, but in step, in spite of dissonance.

(performers speaking at once) (heartbeat thumping) (performers speaking at once) (transition sound effect) (birds chirping) (traffic humming) (video reel clicking) - My name is Troy Anthony.

I'm a composer, a theater maker, a gatherer of people to sing together.

I was approached a few months ago to write a piece in response to a couple of other selections that are on the program.

It was a response to the "Seven Last Words" and "Sanctum", which are both pieces that I think center Black death at the hands of state violence.

(piano music) ♪ Professor, provider So we have... ♪ Professor, provider ♪ Professor, provider Meditations on breath is written for a facilitator, a praise team, a traditional choral ensemble, and a gospel band.

I grew up in the Black church, and so I was really thinking about the idea that when you are faced with something that is harmful or when you feel grief, or you're in sorrow, I feel like the Black church has a lot of technology to get people to a place of joy, or to take us deeper into a healing practice.

And so, I really wanted to write something that felt healing, that helped us process those other two wonderful works that put these large issues in front of our face.

- Martin Luther King called music, particularly spirituals, the soundtrack of the movement.

And I often reflect upon his words because the music during the civil rights era was an energizing force.

It was a motivational force.

It was also a way of inviting and invoking spirit.

♪ I believe in what my breath can do ♪ - A presence that is greater than ourselves for work that is greater than ours.

I have known of Joel Thompson's piece, "The Seven Last Words of the Unarmed", but I've never performed it.

And so, getting a chance to study and really delve into that work has been deeply moving.

And so, it's been beautiful to really understand and delve into that work, and then to shape our voices to really embody the spirit of what that work is about.

And then, we add to that the work by Troy Anthony, which is a new piece that has been created for this meditations on breath, which is a refreshing kind of piece.

Very different but very beautiful.

♪ I'm breathing - I think that's gonna be a really special moment in the program.

- When the cameras are off and when we're alone with our souls in the dark, there is a truth about ourselves and about our world that we can either fully embrace or not.

An unavoidable truth about the body becomes alive and present when music is in the air.

♪ Oh ♪ Oh (orchestral music) (orchestral music continues) (gentle music) - I'd love for you to take a deep breath in (gentle music) and let it out.

(gentle music) And then, another deep breath in (gentle music) and hold, (gentle music) and let it out.

(gentle music) ♪ Breathe in - Try again.

Deep breath in.

♪ Breathe - And let it out.

So, I'm hoping that people use the song as a tool.

Another deep breath in.

♪ Breathe in - Take in this moment, and let out.

That they can actually sit down and breathe and let the music move through them.

♪ I believe in what my breath can do ♪ ♪ Breathe ♪ I believe in what my breath can do ♪ As long as there's breath in my body, I'm not afraid.

♪ Oh, I believe in what my (playful music) - As a composer, it's very empowering to see us all together, just celebrating our original music and what we like to create.

And also finding the connections between each of our work.

(video reel clicking) ("Sanctum") ("Sanctum") ("Sanctum") ("Sanctum") ("Sanctum") - Loud reckoning like fire, yellow heat, sonic ancestry, ascend star-dusted names say more than her likeness.

Speak her clearly.

- So, I wrote "Sanctum" in 2015 and it was very much inspired by what was going around us at the time and different issues of police brutality.

But it began with inspiration from a sermon by Pastor Shirley Caesar called "The Praying Slave Lady".

And the whole theme of it was, it was dealing with this interaction of like our earthly reality and the idea of this woman who was praying and that the spirits intervened when she was going to be brutalized by her slave master.

("Sanctum") ("Sanctum") ♪ He just beaten me ♪ He just beaten me ("Sanctum") - One thing that was just natural to me is just this mixing of cultures and this mixing of styles that I grew up, and I grew up playing piano in the church as well.

("Sanctum") I've always had a sacred focus in my work.

It's something that I realized later.

It's just what I have been interested in.

("Sanctum") ("Sanctum") ("Sanctum") ("Sanctum") ("Sanctum") If there's a narrative about how people want to define what is or what is not Black music, you see just how expansive our creative voices are.

("Sanctum") ("Sanctum") To be on a program with these composers that I admire and we've been in the same orbit, but we're actually in the same place at the same time, and the diversity of music that's on the stage, that's all Black music, it just means a lot to have this particular piece on this program.

("Sanctum") ♪ He just beaten me ♪ I can do the impossible ♪ With each breath I'm living ♪ Spirit surrounds me (choir drowns out conductor) - [Conductor 2] Faster.

♪ I can do all things, I can do all things ♪ ♪ Sinner or saint ♪ You're welcome - [Conductor 1] One more time, sinner, saint.

♪ Sinner or saint ♪ You're welcome (participants discussing) ♪ In this place called heaven ♪ Is there a place for everyone ♪ ♪ Sinner or saint ♪ Sinner or saint ♪ You're welcome ♪ In this place called heaven ♪ Nobody knows where the road will end ♪ (participants discussing) - Just so everyone knows, you're probably a guest by now, but this is music of beautiful Nona Hendryx.

(attendees cheer and clap) You guys want me to do it, but I don't wanna do it anyways.

- Hi, everybody.

Thank you.

You sound beautiful.

Thank you so much.

The music is incredible to hear.

I would just go to hear the music myself, so.

(gentle music) What I felt when we first did it and what I feel when I'm doing it is what I hope people feel that they get this same sort of healing, inspiring, mute feeling that I get.

Yeah, that's what I hope.

(gentle instrumental music) (participants laughing) (gentle instrumental music) When I was asked to do this, we were talking more about my performing with just my pianist and bringing everything back down from the large orchestra, after starting with Abby, small and growing.

And then, I was thinking about it and working with Eti.

And Eti and was like, "Wait, this is a chance we can work with a full orchestra or full choir.

Let's come up with an orchestration," which he did a beautiful job of.

"Heaven" was going to be the last piece, but we were gonna go from "Grace" into the second piece.

But we started with "Heaven" that this is where what this evening feels like for us.

(gentle instrumental music) ♪ And nobody knows where the road begins ♪ ♪ No one can see beyond this moment in time ♪ ♪ And nobody knows where the road will end ♪ ♪ You just keep love in your heart and your mind ♪ ♪ I will go ♪ In a place called heaven ♪ Is there a place ♪ Is there a place ♪ Called heaven ♪ Oh, sinner ♪ Sinner or saint (gentle instrumental music) ♪ Hmm (gentle instrumental music) I thought, okay, how do you close out this evening?

You close it out with the benediction.

And that's where from my childhood, going to church, made a meditation of my heart and my mind be acceptable.

It just started becoming a chant inside of me.

And so, I began to work on that as the the ending.

But I wanted it to end on an uplift.

And that led me to, we will rise, we will rise, we haven't forgot how to fly.

And has a lot to do with how Harriet Tubman escaping, being slaves, but we still have the energy and the imagination to fly, and that we can go higher and higher.

(attendees cheer and clap) (gentle instrumental music) ♪ Hmm (gentle instrumental music) (gentle instrumental music continues) ♪ Eeh-eeh (gentle instrumental music) ♪ Hmm, hmm (gentle instrumental music) ♪ Hmm, hmm (gentle instrumental music) ♪ Oh-oh-oh (gentle instrumental music) ♪ Let the meditation of my heart ♪ (gentle instrumental music) ♪ And the meditation of my mind ♪ ♪ Be acceptable ♪ Be acceptable in your sight ♪ Let the meditation of my heart ♪ ♪ Hmm ♪ And the meditation of my mind ♪ ♪ Oh, be ♪ Be acceptable ♪ Be acceptable ♪ Be acceptable ♪ Be acceptable ♪ In your sight ♪ In your sight ♪ Let the meditation ♪ Let the ♪ Of my heart ♪ To come ♪ And for those ♪ And the meditation ♪ Who passed away ♪ Of my heart ♪ Live forever (gentle instrumental music) ♪ Live forever in our hearts and minds ♪ ♪ And the memory of tonight ♪ Meditation of my mind ♪ And the glory of the day ♪ Live forever ♪ Live forever in our hearts and minds ♪ ♪ And we will rise, rise - [Jonathan] Gathering was an essential term or central way for Black folks to reclaim their faith, reclaim their space.

It's an intentional word, intentional calling to say this is a space built for joy.

This is a space built for healing.

This is a space for us to find each other and to smile when we see each other.

So, the term, to define the word, the gathering, for me is a reclamation.

It's a reclamation of Black culture, Black ideas, Black ancestry, but also a Black future.

- The question that we're asking tonight is about our lives and how they matter.

The question that we're asking tonight is how do you transform your trauma?

Harmonize it into a vibration that can go out into the world, heal yourself and each other.

(attendees cheer and clap) - Flame bright hue of tangerine Christmas.

Honor the water, honor the return of a folding poem.

This is a remembering friend.

This is a rememory.

History, we've been here.

Our open wounds revealing light and a living sound.

Ascension bound to breath.

So, breathe, inhale a dream.

(exhales) Exhale light, exhale hope.

Hold onto each other in this defiant act of living.

(Mahogany exhaling) (video reel clicking) (video beeps and clicks) (exhaling) When I think of gathering, the first thing I think of is like cookout, I think of welcoming, I think of home.

- The first gathering that I can imagine is in somebody's sweaty basement in Queens.

There's rice and beans, and plantain, and (indistinct).

Maybe some church stuff has happened at some point during the day, but ain't nobody thinking about church right now.

- We all need to go back home sometime to reassess, reconnect, to gather, to move forward.

- We talk about gathering, what we're really talking about is not just gathering our folks or where we come from, but it was gathering our spirits, it was gathering our ancestors.

It was a call up to action for restoration.

- When I think of gathering, I think of family in one place and food, because around food, we find community, we build community.

And in this case, the food was the music.

- Yeah, my first memories of gathering are with my family.

Every day we would have family worship and we'd read a scripture or a Bible story, and then we'd sing together.

And so, singing was a part of the fabric of my childhood.

- And my grandmother was the type of person that always had a meal ready to go and the doors were just kind of open.

And so, there were always different people gathering around our table.

- I mean, the first time I think about gathering, the first thing is like church, 'cause we were always in church every single day doing something, choir rehearsal, bible study, cleaning the church, cookouts, french fries.

And with that, it was a sense of community and people just knowing who you are and supporting you when you needed support.

And that is something that I feel in 2020 during the pandemic, we all missed, and the sense of like coming together.

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