A Copland classic, Margaret Walker poems and Gospel Mass “Gloria”

Jackson, Mississippi — The Mississippi Symphony Orchestra’s “Season of Excellence’ continues with the Spirited Jubilation concert at Cade Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, 3 p.m. Sunday, November 22. Your paid ticket is more than admission – your donation will be used to support and uplift this community.

Now in its fourth year, the collaboration between MSO and Cade Chapel combines selections from the largely European repertoire for which the orchestra is known with Black church musical traditions and works to generate a program that weds diverse creative legacies, drives thoughtful dialogue and unites communities.

Presented side by side, “One informs the other,” MSO Conductor Crafton Beck said of historical and contemporary works that connect across cultures.

Spirited Jubilation continues MSO’s multi-concert celebration of America’s 250th birthday – this time with an all-American melting-pot lineup that lands close to home.

Opening the concert will be Aaron Copland’s famous Appalachian Spring, an evocation of the pioneer spirit set in 19th century rural Pennsylvania, performed here as originally written for a 13-member chamber orchestra. The 1944 work won the New York Music Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize in Music.

The Jackson State University Concert Chorale will be featured in three songs of Margaret Walker’s poetry, building on recent concert-version premieres at JSU and at Yale University of Jubilee: A Folk Opera. The opera reimagines Walker’s acclaimed 1966 novel based her own ancestors’ journey from slavery to a freedom still fraught with challenges.

Songs I Hear a Rumbling and I Want to Write – music by Randy Klein, orchestral arrangement by Beck and the 50-voice JSU Concert Chorale – will resonate with fresh intimacy in the church sanctuary under the direction of JSU Director of Choral Activities and Cade Chapel Minister of Music Harry Cecil.

The JSU Concert Chorale and Cade Chapel Chorale will combine voices for the concert finale, Gloria from Gospel Mass, composer Robert Ray’s famed choral work blending Latin Mass liturgical text with African American gospel music styles.

General admission tickets for Spirited Jubilation — $30 for adults, $15 for students — are available in advance: online at msorchestra.com or in-person at Ardenland in Duling Hall. The box office will open at 2:30 p.m. on the afternoon of the concert.

MSO’s Chamber Series is sponsored by Keesler Federal Credit Union and the Spirited Jubilation concert is sponsored by Dr. Jason K. Taylor.

MSO is supported in part by the Mississippi Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Who: Mississippi Symphony Orchestra
What: Spirited Jubilation, Chamber Series concert
When: 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 22, 2026
Where: Cade Chapel M.B. Church, 1000 W. Ridgeway St., Jackson, MS
Website: msorchestra.com
Tickets: ticketmaster.com