Lift Every Voice: A Concert of Music and Poetry in Remembrance of Juneteenth

West End Community Chorus Presents

Lift Every Voice: A Concert of Music and Poetry in Remembrance of Juneteenth

June 19, 2025 – 7:30 PM | West End Collegiate Church, New York City

New York, NY — On Thursday, June 19, 2025 at 7:30 PM, the West End Community Chorus will present

Lift Every Voice, a Juneteenth concert that commemorates the delayed but triumphant freedom of

enslaved people in the United States through a soul-stirring program of choral music, spirituals, poetry,

and classical music. There is a suggested donation of $19 in honor of Juneteenth.

Curated, directed, and conducted by Derrick Byars, Director of Music Ministry at West End Church, Lift

Every Voice aims to take us on a journey from 1865 Galveston to 2025 New York City, showing how this

movement shaped our world today.

The concert features the West End Community Chorus and orchestra, alongside celebrated guest

soloists:

• David Morgans, three-time Grammy-winning tenor (Met Opera’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm

X; film: She Came to Me)

• Manna K. Jones, operatic soprano (Heartbeat Opera; Broadway’s Rocktopia; Josephine Baker in

Josephine, Union Avenue Opera, St. Louis [upcoming])

• Malachi Brown, dynamic NYC-based cellist and composer (Parable of the Sower at Lincoln

Center; tours with Marvel’s Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse and Sigur Rós)

• Lyda Jade Harlan, musical theater soprano (Anya in Anastasia, Bucks County Playhouse; Maggie

at Goodspeed Opera House, Connecticut)

Musical highlights include spirituals, gospel, theatrical repertoire, and works by Black composers and

arrangers:

• “My Lord, What a Morning “ (Harry T. Burleigh)

• “Hear My Prayer” (Moses Hogan)

• “Make Them Hear You” and “Back to Before” (Ragtime)

• “Total Praise” (Richard Smallwood)

• “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson) — performed in

full with choir and orchestra.

The evening is interwoven with poetry and spoken word by Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and

Amanda Gorman, crafting a dramatic and reflective arc rooted in community and sacred memory.

“This concert is about bearing witness — to freedom, to history, to the future we’re still building,”

says Byars. “Music becomes the sacred bridge between what was and what must still come.”

Event Details:

Lift Every Voice: A Concert of Music and Poetry in Remembrance of Juneteenth

Thursday, June 19, 2025

7:30 PM (doors open at 7:00 PM)

West End Collegiate Church – 245 West 77th Street, NYC

RSVP at westendchurch.org/juneteenth

Donations to support the music ministry and its future programming are welcome. Contributions help

sustain inclusive, community-focused concerts at the intersection of faith and the arts.

For interviews or media inquiries, contact talkhoury@westendchurch.org.