Choral Arts MLK Tribute Concert!

Sunday night, the Choral Arts Society of Washington held its 29th annual choral tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Kennedy Center. Ruby Bridges, who walked into the history books when she walked into the first grade as the first black student to integrate public schools in New Orleans, was honored with the 14th annual Choral Arts Humanitarian Award. Her brave march into school is memorialized in the famous Norman Rockwell painting “The Problem We All Live With." Here, Choral Arts artistic director Scott Tucker, pianist and vocalist extraordinaire Ralph Alan Herndon, 2013 honoree Dr. Ysaye Barnwell, Washington Performing Arts Gospel Choirs artistic director Stanley J. Thurston, Bridges, and Washington Performing Arts Children of the Gospel Choir music director Michele Fowlin.

Choral Arts artistic director Scott Tucker, board member and chorister Anne B. Keiser, Chorus America executive director Catherine Dehoney and Choral Arts executive director Tad Czyzewski.

Attendees were treated to Washington Performing Arts’ Children of the Gospel choir, which brought the house down with their renditions of "This Little Light of Mine" and "We Shall Be Changed."

Here, singer and songwriter Ysaye Barnwell joins Bridges and Children's Defense Fund founder and president Marian Wright Edelman. In Bridges’ Humanitarian Award acceptance speech, she said when she grows up, she wants to be just like Edelman.