Saturday, October 12, 2019, 7:30pm | The Great Hall of the Historic Nineteenth Street Baptist Church

Co-presented by the National Museum of African American History & Culture's Center for the Study of African American Religious Life and NEWorks Productions in collaboration with the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church

"Incredible..."  -DENYCE GRAVES-MONTGOMERY, internationally celebrated opera star,

"Spectacular... "  -SCOTT TUCKER, artistic director, Choral Arts Society of Washington

"Extraordinary..." -ANGELGIL-ORDONEZ, music director, PostClassical Ensemble

Ethereality: Celestial Dreams & the Great Beyond is a choral/orchestral concert exploring the intersectionality of science and spirituality. Conceived and artistically directed by Nolan Williams, Jr., the first mounting of this concert experience featured contemporary classical works and stirring spiritual arrangements by composers of African descent performed by the Morgan State University and NEWorks Voices of America Choirs, stellar soloists, and the 60-member NEWorks Philharmonic Orchestra, formed especially for this occasion.

Featured program works included the Washington, D.C. premiere of Williams’ “Hold Fast To Dreams,” a song cycle branded by the Philadelphia Inquirer as “soaring… lovely… dreamily upbeat” following its first performance with Cristian Măcelaru and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2017, and “Sukkot through Orion’s Nebula,” a celebrated work by James Lee III, commissioned by the Sphinx Commissioning Consortium and premiered in 2011 by Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony Orchestra. 

The program finale featured a diverse Unity World Choir performing the timely spiritual, "He's Got the Whole World In His Hands."