Charlotte Symphony to Present MUSIC + HEALING

The Charlotte Symphony will make its debut at the Sandra Levine Theatre in the Sarah Belk Gambrell Center for the Arts and Civic Engagement at Queens University of Charlotte with a program showcasing the unique healing power of music on Sunday, April 3, 2022, at 3:00 p.m. As a universal language, music has the extraordinary ability to unite humanity in a shared mental and emotional connection. That universality allows music to be used to explore complex topics - like race, mental health, and climate change - and even to help heal in the face of trauma.

Resident Conductor Christopher James Lees will lead the concert, featuring Principal Cellist Alan Black as soloist on the orchestral World Premiere of Mark Leonard Lewis's I Will Wade Out, a piece that reflects on the universal human experience as we work toward collective healing.

"For me," said Lewis, "the work is meant to encapsulate triumph over adversity, to stir the spirits of fortitude, to swim out of the depths of despair, yet to realize one has always been on a path to awakening."

The program will also include Philip Herbert's Elegy: in Memorium - Stephen Lawrence, a work composed as a gesture of empathy following the tragic and racially motivated murder of British teen, Stephen Lawrence; David T. Little's Haunted Topography, a meditation on a story about a mother's grief and healing for the son she lost in Vietnam; Speak, a work by Syrian composer Kinan Abou-afach about the displacement of refugees; Michael Abels's Global Warming; the Rigaudon from Ravel's le Tombeau de Couperin, dedicated to a friend he lost during WWII; and Symphony No. 2 by Saint-Georges, a work that brings voice to previously neglected music by composers of African descent.

Tickets start at $25 and are available now at charlottesymphony.org