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Nashville Symphonyto Receive $50,000 Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts
Nashville, Tenn. (January 10, 2022) – Nashville Symphony is pleased to announce it has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to receive a Grants for Arts Projects award of $50,000. This grant will support the world premiere production of The Jonah People: A Legacy of Struggle and Triumph, by legendary trumpeter and composer Hannibal Lokumbe. Premiering April 13-16 at Schermerhorn Symphony Center, this monumental, multi-disciplinary work features a cast of six vocalists, nine actors, a full chorus, a jazz quartet, an African drumming ensemble, costumes, set design and film. More information about the project can be found at nashvillesymphony.org/jonahpeople.
In the title, a reference to the parable of Jonah and the Whale, Lokumbe finds commonality between those kidnapped from Africa to travel the Middle Passage and Jonah’s own journey inside the great sea creature. In confronting the legacies of slavery, Lokumbe’s work also celebrates the spirit of those who endured – the ancestors whose gifts of hope, perseverance and resilience produced successive generations of visionaries and world-changers.
“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support arts projects in communities nationwide,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “Projects such as this one with the Nashville Symphony strengthen arts and cultural ecosystems, provide equitable opportunities for arts participation and practice and contribute to the health of our communities and our economy.” This project joins other awards totaling nearly $28.8 million that were announced by the NEA as part of its first round of fiscal year 2023 grants.
Alan D. Valentine, President and CEO of the Nashville Symphony, shares: “The National Endowment for the Arts has our deepest gratitude for helping to make this important and groundbreaking work possible. We invite the entire community to join us in April when the Nashville Symphony will mount a celebration of music, community and the African American experience that brings together every aspect of this singular project to leave a transformational, lasting impact on the city of Nashville and beyond.”
For more information on other projects included in the NEA’s grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.
Interviews with Alan D. Valentine and Hannibal Lokumbe available upon request.
About the Nashville Symphony
The Nashville Symphony has served as the primary ambassador for classical music in Music City since 1946. Led by Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero, the ensemble is internationally acclaimed for its focus on contemporary American orchestral music through collaborations with composers including Jennifer Higdon, Terry Riley, Joan Tower and Aaron Jay Kernis; commissioning and recording projects with Nashville-based artists including Edgar Meyer, Bela Fleck, Ben Folds and Victor Wooten; and for its 14 GRAMMY® Awards. In addition to the classical season, the orchestra performs concerts in a wide range of genres, from pops to live-to-film movie scores, family-focused presentations, holiday events, jazz and cabaret evenings, and more.
An established leader in the Nashville and regional arts and cultural communities, the Symphony spearheads groundbreaking community partnerships and initiatives, notably, Violins of Hope Nashville, which engaged tens of thousands of Middle Tennesseans through concerts, exhibits, lectures by spotlighting a historic collection of instruments played by Jewish musicians during the Holocaust. Similarly, this spring, the Nashville Symphony presented the world premiere of an epic opera commissioned from Hannibal Lokumbe, The Jonah Project: A Legacy of Struggle and Triumph. Retracing his family’s ancestry and journey from slavery to the present day, Hannibal’s story celebrates the spirit of those who endured and thrived to become Black visionaries and world changers. More at nashvillesymphony.org
In addition to support from Metro Arts and Tennessee Arts Commission, Nashville Symphony is being supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number SLFRP5534 awarded to the State of Tennessee by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Nashville Symphony is also supported in part by an American Rescue Plan Act grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support general operating expenses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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