FURTHERMORE
A TIME OF HEALING The DSO and DBDT join forces for Project Unity, an evening dedicated to victims of racial violence and injustice. BY STEVE CARTER
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roll call of the names strikes an eerily tragic, and by now all-too-familiar, knell: George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake, Botham Jean. And the list of victims has continued to grow, lives lost to racial violence and injustice. But how to honor those lives? One beautifully uplifting answer is the upcoming Unity Concert, a collaborative night of hope-giving and fund-raising that melds the talents of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, the DSO’s Young Strings, and guest vocalists Michelle Bradley, soprano, and Reginald Smith, Jr., baritone. Scheduled for Wednesday, November 11, 7:30 p.m. at the Meyerson to a reduced live audience, and streaming live online to all, the concert will raise funds for Project Unity while raising awareness. Project Unity, founded by Pastor Richie Butler of St. Luke “Community” United Methodist Church in Dallas, seeks to heal the oftenfraught race relations between Dallasites and law enforcement; the community-building organization last collaborated with the DSO for last year’s Gospel Goes Classical concert. The seeds of the Unity Concert were sown back in June, following George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25. Kim Noltemy, the DSO’s Ross Perot President and CEO, says, “We decided not to just issue a statement, but to actually work with colleagues like Richie Butler and Project Unity and Dallas Black Dance Theatre so that we could have a show of unity. Zenetta Drew [DBDT executive director] is on our board, and I’m on her board, so we’re the best of partners…they’re one of the most amazing organizations in the country, and anytime we can work with them, we’re thrilled.”
Melissa M. Young, DBDT’s artistic director, is likewise thrilled to be partnering with her troupe’s DSO neighbors. “We feel that now’s the time for the community to be awakened in an artful way, to come together, to listen and learn and take action,” she says. “We all try to have compassion and understand what it may be like to stand in someone else’s shoes, but it’s not always possible. We feel like this concert is the perfect way to bring everyone into the room, because it’s something that we can all understand, coming together because art moves us and speaks to us in an array of volumes. Perhaps this can be the very thing that allows us to have that breakthrough.” The Unity Concert will have a decidedly Black focus, with performances by the dancers of DBDT and works by Black composers Adolphus Hailstork, Florence Price, William Grant Still, and Quinn Mason. Mason, a young Dallas-based wave-making composer, was commissioned to write his string orchestra work Reflection on a Memorial especially for this concert. Additionally, two renowned Black vocalists, soprano Bradley and baritone Smith, will join the DSO for a selection of gospel/spiritual evergreens. Musicians from the racially diverse DSO Young Strings program will also be included, and speakers will include Butler and Drew, and Dallas City council member Tennell Atkins. “As an arts organization, the thing that we can offer is inspiration and peace and reflection, to try to figure out how we can all work together to have society change,” DSO’s Noltemy says, adding, “We recognize that this is just one event, one organization working with two other organizations, but we feel like it’s the thing that we can do to try and make a difference.” P
From left: Dallas Black Dance Theater Spring Celebration, 2019, A Tender Pardon. Photograph by Amitava Sarkar; Dallas Symphony's Music Director Fabio Luisi conducts Beethoven at the Meyerson Symphony Center. Photograph by Sylvia Elzafon.
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