This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the May 4, 1970 shootings at Kent State University, when four students were killed and nine injured while protesting the United States’ invasion of Cambodia. The Cleveland Chamber Choir will be joined by Kent’s Theodore Roosevelt High School ChoralWorks in commemorating this event through We March On! Music of Social Justice. We will present music that illumines injustice in the world and memorializes those who are working to make the world a better place.

Works featured include Joel Thompson’s shocking Seven Last Words of the Unarmed and music by British and American composers Ethyl Smythe (Songs of Sunrise), Linda Kachelmeier (Each of Us), and Catherine Dalton (She Stood For Freedom, a nod to the Rosa Parks story). The Chamber Choir will also premiere a new commission by Natsumi Osborn (Oberlin College). For her piece Legacy, Osborn was deeply inspired by the poem of the same name by Megan Neville-Jellen, which draws moving imagery from the Pulitzer Prize-winning iconic photo of Mary Ann Vecchio screaming over the body of Kent State student Jeffrey Miller. A portion of the free-will donations will go towards Women For Women Ohio, a non-profit focused on supporting the education of girls in Cambodia.

Come experience the collective power of this amazing poetry and music sung by the world-class voices of the Cleveland Chamber Choir. Pre-concert talk by Charles Edward McGuire, PhD, at 6:45pm.