Matinee Series joins season lineup with Symphony in the Community
Teneia Sanders and 5th Child featured with MSO at Cade Chapel
Jackson, Mississippi — The Mississippi Symphony Orchestra builds on last season’s successful debut of its Matinee Series with two “Symphony in the Community” concerts. The fall concert begins at 3 p.m. October 29 at Cade Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, 1000 W. Ridgeway St. in Jackson. A brilliant showcase for Jackson artists, the concert is open to all listeners, ages and faiths, and offered on a contribute-as-you-can basis.
The “Symphony in the Community” concerts at Cade Chapel continue the vision of MSO Maestro Crafton Beck and Cade Chapel’s Rev. Reginald Buckley, bringing their parallel missions and respective audiences together. Their mission is to reach Jacksonians in exciting and unexpected ways, through fresh musical ties that connect, unite and inspire.
“We serve the spirit through music every day,” said MSO Maestro Crafton Beck, “whether in classrooms, concert halls, sanctuaries or outdoors.… And of course, our sacred institutions do the same thing, nourishing the spirit through scripture and faith.
“We’re nurturing our community – the spirit and the humanity of our community,” Beck said of the program designed on the strengths of the church’s west Jackson neighborhood and availability to everyone. “Anyone who misses out on these concerts is really missing out.… In these concerts we are searching out fresh, new ways to speak to and for the world around us. And this necessarily means fusing art forms such as poetry, hip-hop and gospel with the orchestra, all of which are on this program. We want our traditional MSO audience to be there, and Pastor Buckley wants not just his church, but everyone in his neighborhood to discover what we are doing here.”
Classical music meets soul, hip hop and more in an hour-long program packed with creative pairings and partnerships. Folk-soul singer/songwriter Teneia Sanders and hip hop artist 5th Child, both of Jackson, return with vibrant songs that speak straight to the heart, of a person and a community: Sanders’ “Angry Man,” with its highly distinctive ethnic flavor, and her ballad “Who’s Gonna Love Me?,” plus 5th Child’s “Juneteenth” and “GOAT Emoji.”
Both artists call collaboration with the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra a dream come true. “All these ingredients, I feel, worked well individually and when they came together, rather than clashing, they complemented each other,” said 5th Child in speaking of preparations for this upcoming collaboration. “Audience response was incredible.”
Sanders loved the shows’ all-ages energy, recalling from her concert at Cade Chapel last year, “a great experience for everybody, no matter what genre of music you normally listen to. It made everybody connect, you know?”
The October 29 matinee opens with selections from late Nigerian composer Fela Sowande’s African Suite for Strings and Harp and closes with a leap-to-your-feet finale – “Walk Him Up” from the musical Purlie, with the Cade Chapel Choir joined by Sanders and 5th Child.
In-between, the program engages with the plucky appeal of Jessie Montgomery’s Strum and Mozart’s passionate Adagio from Serenade No. 10. And, in tribute to the upcoming Phyllis Wheatley Poetry Festival (November 1-4, 2023), Jackson poet Amanda Furdge will read Alice Walker’s poem “Remember Me?” and Sonia Sanchez’s “Catch the Fire.”
An open conversation follows the concert, engaging audience and artists to enrich the experience and share more about the music, and about each other.
Community connection is a priority for MSO, from its education programs to its concerts in Jackson and across the state. The Matinee Series and the “Symphony in the Community” concerts are an important part of that effort. MSO President and Executive Director Jenny Mann said, “We are interested in serving everyone and adding as much as we can to the lives of every individual in our community.”
What: Symphony in the Community, MSO Matinee Series, fall concert
Who: Mississippi Symphony Orchestra
When: 3:00 p.m. Sunday, October 29, 2023
Where: Cade Chapel 1000 W. Ridgeway St., Jackson