RITZ CHAMBER PLAYERS | EXPANDING FREEDOM

On King Weekend, RCP honors Coretta Scott King’s Freedom Concert tradition through Harriet Tubman, Langston Hughes, Black women composers! EXPANDING FREEDOM Coretta’s Freedom Concert Inspired by Coretta Scott King’s historic Freedom Concerts, Expanding Freedom reclaims the concert stage as a place of remembrance, resistance, imagination, and human possibility. Across generations of Black women and the continuing struggle for freedom, Margaret Bonds gives musical voice to the poetry of Langston Hughes, while Nkeiru Okoye’s powerful Songs of Harriet Tubman traces the transformation of one woman into an enduring symbol of liberation. With Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole carrying the larger story of Coretta Scott King and the Freedom Concert tradition, music and history meet as they did in the movement itself: not as decoration, but as a force for change. PROGRAM Jessie Montgomery (b. 1981) · Duo for Violin and Cello · for violin and cello Margaret Bonds (1913–1972) · Three Dream Portraits · texts by Langston Hughes · for soprano and piano Nkeiru Okoye (b. 1972) · Songs of Harriet Tubman · for soprano, string quartet, and piano Narrator: Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole Additional repertoire and artists to be announced.