An Evening of Music Celebrating Black History

CITY OF PEORIA, WEST VALLEY ARTS COUNCIL CELEBRATE MUSICAL EXCELLENCE IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY WITH CONCERT IN FEBRUARY

The City of Peoria, in collaboration with The West Valley Arts Council (WVAC), will showcase musical excellence in the black community through the works of black artists and composers at An Evening of Music Celebrating Black History. As part of WVAC’s Imprint: Celebrating Cultural Diversity in America program, the concert will be on Friday Feb. 25 and Saturday, Feb. 26 at the Peoria Center for the Performing Arts, 10580 N. 83rd Drive.

Off-Broadway artist De-Rance Blaylock and Dr. Philip A. Woodmore, musical composer of “Antigone in Ferguson” – a groundbreaking project fusing dramatic readings by actors of Sophocles’ “Antigone” with live choral music – will perform duets honoring black composers and musicians throughout time.

Blaylock, a featured performer in “Antigone in Ferguson,” which was conceived in the wake of Michael Brown’s death in 2014 through a collaboration between Theater of War Productions and community members from Ferguson, MO, and Woodmore also will perform a set of songs he composed. The evening concerts will conclude with a riveting performance by John Leggette, an “Antigone in Ferguson” soloist and a detective St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, of the show’s “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.”

The matinee performance on Feb. 26 will include a community discussion facilitated by Dr. Neal A. Lester, Foundation Professor of English and Founding Director of Project Humanities at Arizona State University. The discussion will focus on the importance and musical influence of gospel music in America.

Fifth-century playwright Sophocles’ “Antigone” is the story of a teenage girl whose efforts to bury her brother, recently killed in a brutal civil war, are thwarted by a new, untested ruler. It is a story about what happens when personal conviction and state law clash, raising the question: When everyone is right (or feels justified), how do we avert the violence that will inevitably take place?

The concert is part of WVAC’s Imprint: Celebrating Cultural Diversity in Americawhich supports people of color in the arts based on three main pillars: African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Indigenous Americans in the arts.

Performances are scheduled at 7 p.m. on Feb. 25 and 2 and 7 p.m. on Feb. 26. Adult tickets are $20. Tickets for veterans, youth and students are $15. For the Saturday matinee, a four-pack of tickets is available for $24. Tickets can be purchased online at www.theaterworks.org.

The concert series also coincides with the WVAC exhibit, Celebrating African Americans in the Arts, now showing through Feb. 25 at Arts HQ Gallery, 16126 N. Civic Center Plaza in Surprise. The exhibit features local artists Tiesha Harrison, Jerome Fleming, Stephen Marc, Sidney Hurd, Nik Ridley and Kesha Bruce.

For more information about West Valley Arts Council, visit www.westvalleyarts.org.

About West Valley Arts: The West Valley Arts (WVA) enriches the West Valley by growing a vibrant and connected arts and cultural community. WVA serves 13 municipalities in the West Valley as an advisory, creator, and coordinator for arts programs including arts venues, grants management, arts festivals, public art, arts education, and regional arts promotion. By creating strategic partnerships we use our resources to grow and strengthen arts and cultural opportunities. Incorporated as the Cultural Arts Society West in 1969, the organization changed its name to the West Valley Fine Arts Council in 1989 to reflect a broader, more inclusive vision. It became the West Valley Arts (WVA) in 2004. WVA has been central to creating what is recognized as a “high quality of life” for West Valley residents, and is the only multi-disciplinary arts organization of its type and scope in the Valley. Since its inception, the WVA has earned multiple awards including two Governor’s Art Awards! For more information, visit westvalleyarts.org.