SELINSGROVE — Author and musician James McBride will be the featured speaker and performer at a day-long celebration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, when Susquehanna University presents its second annual Winter Convocation.
McBride’s speech, titled “Our Common Dream,” will touch upon the search for identity, appreciating cultural differences and making Martin Luther King’s dream a reality in America.
A formal program, which is free and open to the public, begins at 11 a.m. in Weber Chapel Auditorium. Susquehanna President L. Jay Lemons will provide opening remarks.
McBride, an award-winning writer, composer and saxophonist, is probably best known for his landmark memoir, “The Color of Water.” The book, a “New York Times” best seller for two years, is a moving account of McBride’s mother, a Jewish woman from Poland who raised 12 black children in New York City and sent each of them to college.
A native New Yorker, McBride studied composition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio and received his master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. He holds several honorary doctorates and is currently a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.
McBride’s second book and first novel, “Miracle at St. Anna,” is the story of a shy African American soldier set in World War II Italy. It is currently in production and will soon be a major motion picture directed by American film icon Spike Lee.
His third book, “Song Yet Sung,” scheduled for release in early February, is the highly charged story of an escaped female runaway slave in 1850, who desperately eludes a skilled slave catcher through the treacherous swamps of Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
The University Orchestra, conducted by Jennifer Sacher Wiley, will perform movement two, Alla Sarabande, from “Generations Sinfonietta No. 2” by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, followed by movements one and three, “Work Song and Dance,” from “From the Delta” by William Grant Still and performed by the Susquehanna University Symphonic Band, conducted by Eric L. Hinton. The Susquehanna University Chorale conducted by Judith White will contribute “There Is A Balm In Gilead,” arranged by William L. Dawson, to the program.
Concluding the evening will be a performance by McBride’s jazz quintet at 8 p.m. in Stretansky Concert Hall. The public is invited to attend this free event.
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Author, musician to perform at SU
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