Tennessee Players To Present Schweitzer/Bach Tribute 8/28-29

Tennessee Players will present a theatrical tribute to Albert Schweitzer and composer Johann Sebastian Bach during the weekend of August 28 and 29.

Actor Tom Dolan will be featured in the Nashville area premiere of Albert Schweitzer: Memoirs from Africa on Friday, August 28, at 8 p.m. (CDT) in historic Memorial Chapel at Fisk University, to be followed by a reception in Fisk's JubiLee Hall.

Originally premiering in Aspen, Colorado, on July 6, Memoirs from Africa commemorated Schweitzer's visit to Aspen in 1949 to give the keynote address at the Goethe Bicentennial Convocation.

"It will be great to be back at the Fisk Chapel," said Tennessee Players' Thurston Moore. "In 1996 we presented another milestone production: Lincoln and the Fisk Jubliee Singers, celebrating the Singers' 125th anniversary. It was the first time they ever performed with someone else on stage!"

His late wife, Georgianna, directed that production "on a beautiful Easter Sunday," Moore recalled.

On Saturday, August 29, Tennessee Players will present is multimedia musical dramatization, Words of Albert Schweitzer and the Music of Bach at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center at 7:30 p.m. It premiered in 1995 and has been seen throughout the United States and in Canada and Europe.

Speaking Schweitzer's words will be Dr. Nicholas Comninellis, president of the Institute For International Medicine (INMED). Also featured will be Naomi Tutu, daughter of Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Rob Wilds, of Nashville Public Television's Tennessee Crossroads. Organist Gail Archer will perform Bach's music on the Schoenstein Organ during the presentation.

Both performances, made possible by a grant from The Martin Foundation, are free and open to the public. For more information, visit the Tennessee Players' website at www.tennesseeplayers.org.