“The Gateways Music Festival Orchestra makes its Carnegie Hall debut on April 24, 2022,” reads an unsigned article in Tuesday’s (6/8) Harlem World Magazine. “While Carnegie Hall has presented several all-Black ensembles over the course of its history, Gateways Music Festival Orchestra is the first known all-Black classical symphony orchestra to be featured at the venue. Led by Music Director Michael Morgan, the concert will showcase the world premiere of a new Gateways commission from 2021-22 ‘Perspectives’ artist Jon Batiste…. Batiste’s new work shares the program with Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Florence Price’s Third Symphony, and Sinfonia No. 3 by George Walker…. The concert concludes with James V. Cockerham’s Fantasia on ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing,’ a signature piece for the ensemble, whose distinguished members hail from the foremost orchestras and conservatory teaching faculties nationwide…. The Gateways Music Festival … was founded in 1993 [and is based in] Rochester, New York [at] Eastman School of Music…. Lee Koonce [is] Gateways’ President & Artistic Director…. The Carnegie Hall concert crowns a full week of festival activities in April, with orchestral concerts, chamber recitals, talks, panel discussions, and film screenings in both New York City and Rochester.”
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