When composer Curtis Stewart sought inspiration for his latest project with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, he found it in the words of Martin Luther King Jr.
Stewart’s piece, “I wouldn’t stop there: in the words of a KING,” will debut at Chrysler Hall on Friday, followed by a performance at the Ferguson Center for the Arts on Saturday. The free concerts, which include the Norfolk State University Choir, are part of a larger evening celebrating American music.
The roughly 9-minute piece was commissioned by the Symphony, which received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, to create something like a spiritual to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Monday, Jan. 19.
Stewart, a seven-time Grammy-nominated violinist and professor at The Juilliard School in New York, has worked with the Symphony on multiple occasions.
“We’ve commissioned him a couple of times to write things for us and loved every minute of it,” said Eric Jacobsen, music director of the Symphony. “He really found an amazing way into this piece, into this program, into this concept.”
After listening to multiple speeches, Stewart focused on King’s Mountaintop speech, delivered in Memphis on April 3, 1968, the night before King's assassination.
“I knew I wanted to extend King’s vision,” said Stewart, struck by King’s offering that if he could live in any age — the heyday of the Roman Empire, the Renaissance, the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation — “I wouldn’t stop there.”
The refrain is repeated emphatically throughout the 45-minute speech.
King encourages seeing the struggle for equality until the end — a message Stewart thought would resonate with today’s audiences.
“I wanted to develop the music based on the rhythm of his words,” said Stewart, who decided that incorporating audio from King would be powerful.
It was an ambitious endeavor. The King estate holds the copyright protection and is stringent about granting authorization. The bulk of the challenge fell to Stewart’s manager, Monica Felkel, who became a sleuth in search of the correct contact for the request.
“I spent a long time just looking for a name instead of a general email,” she said.
Once she found the right person, Felkel submitted a package about the proposed composition: a link to a sample recording, a five-page application, a draft of the program note and a PDF of the score along with Stewart’s biography.
“I faxed 43 pages,” she said. The request, made in November, was granted for the Hampton Roads performances only, with no licensing fee required.
King pushed for unity in his Mountaintop speech and the need to “keep moving” in the face of obstacles. Stewart demonstrates that idea by the orchestra “getting stuck” until the choir unlocks its movement by repetitively singing, “I wouldn’t stop there.” King’s rich baritone on the eve of his death is a chilling addition.
“This is a nostalgia and an awareness that very few voices can achieve,” Jacobsen said. “Just listening to Martin Luther King’s voice, in itself, is a beautiful performance. He was such an orator, such a performer, such a conveyer of emotion.”
Stewart is hopeful audiences will leave the concert feeling inspired despite the polarizing times defining America now, which fuels social media debate for everything from climate change to racial justice.
“Everybody feels like they’ve gained things and then they’ve lost things,” he said. “Sometimes it’s hard to continue when you constantly feel like you’re losing.
The arrangement “is meant to feel heartening — this is not the first time. It’s happened before. There were people who did not stop and there are people looking to put their lives down to fight.”
The program includes Jennifer Higdon’s Harp Concerto with Virginia Symphony Principal Harpist Alexis Colner, George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” and Aaron Copland’s “Four Dance Episodes” from “Rodeo.”
A panel discussion titled “Black Religious Music and the American Experience” will be held before the program. Panelists include Barbara Hamm Lee from WHRO, Antipas Harris, CEO of the Urban Renewal Center, Harlan Zackery, director of NSU Choirs and Cassandra Newby-Alexander, NSU history professor and Endowed Professor of Virginia Black History and Culture. The discussion is free and tickets to the concert are not required.
Virginia Symphony will also commemorate the King holiday with two free concerts titled “A Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” The first will be at 7 p.m., on Jan. 18 at the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts in Virginia Beach. Registration is encouraged.
The second is at 7 p.m., Jan. 20, at Norcom High School in Portsmouth. Registration is encouraged.
Jacobsen will be among the conductors for the concerts that will feature Earl Bynum & The Mount Unity Choir. Deep Creek High School senior Elise Hill, a cellist at the Governor’s School for the Arts, will perform Max Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei, Op. 47” as the soloist.
Visit virginiasymphony.org to register and for more information.