CBST's Social Justice Concert Returns!
CBST Member, Violist Adria Benjamin, and her esteemed colleagues present chamber music to bring beauty, meaning, and comfort to our community in these challenging times. All are welcome to this program, which will be held in person in our magnificent Wine Family Sanctuary. Admission and your gift of any amount support our bold social justice work. Get your tickets here.
A few words from Adria
“At the Social Justice Concert on May 23, you’ll hear ‘Lyric for Strings,’ written by George Walker in 1946, in memory of his grandmother, who lost her first husband to being sold in slavery.
George Walker was the first African American composer to win a Pulitzer. After an opera of his opened at the New York City Opera—the first by an African American composer—George did an interview. He said he never talked to his grandmother about her being an escaped slave. He finally got the courage one day to ask her what it was like, and her response was one sentence: ‘They did everything but eat us.’ Rather chilling.
And yet out of all the pain of losing his grandmother, George creates beauty that inspires the rest of the world when people hear this music. Out of such turmoil and struggle and devastation, humanity can create beauty.
That’s what this concert is all about. Even in the face of death, and the most tragic loss, we are still moved to create art, and we come together to share it.
It’s a special moment for all of us to be back in the CBST Sanctuary on Monday night. These are challenging times. And even in these times, we can come together and share the gift of great music, and being together in our beautiful sanctuary.
This is an extraordinary experience for us as performers, and we in turn hope it will be an extraordinary experience for those who come to the concert and those that will be on a live stream. Making music in a sacred space elevates everything that we love.
This annual concert started when I called Rabbi Kleinbaum in November 2016 and said, ‘I want to do concerts where we raise money for social justice programming at CBST.’ It was a reaction born out of frustration and some desperation, but it’s also born out of hope. And that’s what we hope to give back to the audience on Monday night at the Social Justice Concert.”
Get your tickets here for the Social Justice Concert at CBST at 7 p.m. on Monday, May 23.