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Saturday, June 15, 2024 | 2pm Pacific

American
Freedom Songs
with Candace Johnson & Kev Choice

 

Join AMN for our fifth annual
Juneteenth Choral Celebration!

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Event Video

Enjoy this highlight from our 3rd annual Juneteenth Celebration in 2023!

About the Event

Dates and Times

Thursday, June 19, 2025   |  7pm Pacific

Who should attend?

Anyone who wishes to participate in an inspiring hour of singing the joyous American music of FREEDOM!

Where?

East Bay Church of Religious Science: 4130 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA
and streaming online.

Is there a cost?

Pay what you can! (suggested price $10)

How do I prepare?

No preparation is required! We will provide some listening materials for those who wish to learn the parts in advance, but just show up and join in: All will enjoy singing this inspiring music together.

About the Artists

Candace Johnson, Leader

Praised by Opera Wire for her vocal clarity, dramatic presence, and expressive interpretation, soprano Candace Y. Johnson has concertized widely, including guest appearances at Carnegie Hall and The Manhattan Center, and with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. Johnson is a versatile artist, equally comfortable in opera, musical theater, and jazz. She has performed lead roles in Le Nozze di FigaroThe MediumSuor AngelicaFame, and she defined the genre-bending role of Jackie in the world premiere of Howard’s End, America with RealOpera, San Francisco (2019).

In the Spring of 2021 at The Marsh Theater, Johnson premiered a solo musical performance series titled The Art Songs of Black Composers, wherein she uniquely integrates vocal performance, theatrical storytelling, and music analysis — all to champion the songs and lives of African American composers past and present.

Also a fitness enthusiast, in 2020, Johnson launched FitnesSing!™, a new vocal health approach she designed that combines vocal training with physical fitness and dance. FitnesSing!™ streams live every Friday at noon on The Marsh Theater’s virtual platform, the MarshStream. It is quickly becoming the rave with singers of every skill level.

In 2018, Johnson premiered her first one-woman show, VOX in a BOX– the musical biography of how she found her “voice.” In VOX in a BOX Johnson uniquely fuses her black music heritage and classical training with storytelling to explore themes of identity, race, belonging, and freedom of expression.

On the voice faculty at the University of California-Berkeley since 2009, Johnson teaches applied voice classes and a musicology course she designed based on her research and performance of works by African-American composers. Prior to her current appointment, she was awarded a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship in the music department. Johnson earned her doctorate in voice performance from the University of Michigan, where she studied with the late Shirley Verrett, as well as George Shirley and Willis Patterson.

Kev Choice, Pianist

Pianist. Emcee. Producer. Bandleader. Sideman. Music historian. Kev Choice wears many hats, and all of them fit. Blessed with prodigious talent, plus the skill and dedication to his craft to pull it off, the Oakland-based artist is redefining what it means to be a musician in this day and age. Not too many classically-trained pianists who hold Master’s degrees in jazz can rock microphones with blazing-hot 16s.

Yet such versatility comes natural to Choice, whose diverse array of influences ranges from Prince to Rakim to A Tribe Called Quest to Stevie Wonder to McCoy Tyner to Chopin and Ravel.

“I grew up in the Hip-Hop era,” he explains. “I had love for Hip-Hop before I even knew what classical music really was.” Hip-Hop, he says, “was always the music that helped me express myself the most,” while “Classical music gave me a broader understanding and appreciation for music beyond Hip-Hop.”

Hope Briggs, Guest Artist

A native of New Jersey, Hope drew a rave review from Opera News for her San Francisco Opera debut as the Duchess of Parma in Busoni’s Doktor Faust “… Hope Briggs was stellar, delivering one of the evening’s highlights with her lusciously intoned, lovelorn aria.” 

Ms. Briggs sang the role of Lucinda in Opera San Jose’s workshop of Jake Heggie’s newest opera, Intelligence, and made her debut with Reno Chamber Orchestra in Beethoven’s Ah! Perfido. She also appeared as Marschallin in excerpts of Der Rosenkavalier with Fremont Symphony Orchestra, performed Bruckner’s Te Deum with Oakland Symphony, returned to Baton Rouge for Opéra Louisiane’s 10th Anniversary Gala, and made two important role debuts: Nedda in I Pagliacci with Festival Opera and the title role in Joplin’s Treemonisha with Mississippi Symphony Orchestra. She also sang Cio Cio San in Madama Butterfly with Opéra Louisiane, debuted at Carnegie Hall with the New England Symphonic Ensemble, and sang Verdi’s Messa da Requiem with the San Francisco Choral Society at Davies Symphony Hall.

Workshop Materials

Music Coming Soon

    THANK YOU TO OUR PARTNERS

     

     

     

    This event is supported by the Bill Graham Supporting Foundation of the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund.

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