Acclaimed cellist reconnects with family ties in Cade Chapel concert with MSO
Patrice Jackson’s cello artistry is at home across musical genres
Jackson, Mississippi — Mississippi Symphony Orchestra’s “Symphony in the Community” concert, 3:00 p.m. Sunday, November 10, at Cade Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, is set to shine with international performer and soloist Patrice Jackson in a return visit and featured spotlight at her family’s home church.
She was born and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, but her Jackson and Mississippi roots run deep enough that MSO President and Executive Director Jenny Mann hails her as a “hometown hero.” Her parents are from McComb (dad Patrick Green) and Jackson (mom Chakita Green) and her Cade Chapel ties reach back to her great-grandmother Gussie Seals and continue with her grandmother Lucille Green.
MSO Maestro Crafton Beck who has worked with the cellist in several concerts here and in Ohio, said “She is just an extraordinary musical personality and a brilliant intellect.” He recalled an encore at her concert in Lima, its connection to her Black cultural roots and the way the artist “is very consciously or unconsciously doing things that only she can do on the cello.… It blew my mind, and that’s where this project came from. I saw her embracing her people and her culture and giving it voice through the cello.”
Jackson took the top prize in the national 2002 Sphinx Competition for young Black and Latino string players and made her international orchestral and recital debuts in South Africa. A gifted soloist, she earned praise for her “effortless facility, playful phrasing and a sense of spontaneity” from the Hartford Courant, and has performed with symphonies from Dallas to Detroit, and Atlanta to Philadelphia. The Juilliard and Yale graduate is now associate professor of cello at the prestigious Berklee College of Music and Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where she has been on the faculty for more than a decade.
The classical music realm is just one avenue for Jackson, who has also worked with iconic artists such as Kanye West, J-Cole, Alicia Keys and Stevie Wonder. “For me, it’s an honor to play, just, good music,” Jackson said, “whether it’s genre specific or artist specific — just good music. That’s always been at the forefront for me.” She is honored, too, when such high-caliber, big-name artists still value and respect live strings in an age of synthesizers, she added. “To have that sound of live strings, that cannot be duplicated, no matter how well the programming is, is still meaningful to me.”
At Cade Chapel, she’ll perform a gospel tribute that includes solo pieces, songs with guest pianist Terrance Evans, and songs with the Cade Chapel Choir, including “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” “I Love to Praise Him,” “For Every Mountain,” and more. Pianist Evans, a Jackson native, has traveled, recorded and performed with local and national artists.
The concert’s program also includes Joseph Bologne de Saint-Georges’s Overture to L’Amant Anonyme, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Love Sonnet” from Petite Suite and four folk songs “in dialogue” by composers Percy Grainger and Florence Price. A post-concert chat shares insights and stories about the music and the players.
MSO’s fruitful partnership with Cade Chapel, now entering its third season and folding into MSO’s Chamber Series, highlights fresh voices and rich local talents as it explores innovative collaborations that bring communities and musicians together in concert and conversation.
The informal matinee is free and open to all. Pay-as-you can donations are welcome and appreciated.
MSO’s 2024-2025 Chamber Series is generously supported by Communication Arts Company, and the Season is supported in part by funding from the Mississippi Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
Who: Mississippi Symphony Orchestra
What: MSO’s Symphony in the Community, a Chamber Series concert
When: 3:00 p.m., Sunday, November 10, 2024
Where: Cade Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, 1000 W. Ridgeway St., Jackson, MS 39213