Carnegie Hall Presents Honors Series at Apollo Theatre

Prior to this special weekend, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute also presents a free, interactive Carnegie Hall Community Sing at the Apollo Theater Soundstage on Friday, March 13 at 6:30 p.m., which invites vocalists of all ages and levels to make music together with host Vy Higginsen and the Gospel for Teens Choir.

The Honor! festival runs from March 4 through March 23, celebrating African American music and its influence worldwide with more than 20 concerts and events throughout New York City. Festival events will also pay tribute to pioneering artists who forged the path for succeeding generations. For more information, visit carnegiehall.org/honor.

Now in its 118th season, Carnegie Hall has long presented performances of Spirituals and gospel music, having had an open-door policy for performers and audience alike since its opening. Paul Robeson is believed to have presented the first full program of Spirituals in a solo recital at Carnegie Hall in 1929, although a duo vocal recital by J. Rosamond Johnson and Taylor Gordon preceded it by more than two years. Even before that, a concert entitled "Hampton Negro and Indian Folk Lore Concert" took place in 1902. More recently, sopranos Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle, appearing together for the first time, performed a historic program of Spirituals, recorded for PBS telecast, in 1990. Some of gospel music’s great stars have also performed at Carnegie Hall throughout the years, from Mahalia Jackson who made the first of her eight Carnegie Hall appearances in 1950 as part of a “Negro Gospel Music Festival” presented by Joe Bostic, noted radio announcer and producer of “The Gospel Train” on WLIB Radio; to The Winans, which recorded its Grammy-winning Live at Carnegie Hall album over two concerts in 1987.

Celebrating its 75th Anniversary season in 2009, the iconic Apollo Theater has been a driving force shaping America’s cultural and musical landscape, launching the careers of gospel greats like Clara Ward, the Staple Sisters, and Sam Cooke’s Soul Stirrers. As legends like these graced its stage, the Harlem theater became a catalyst for broadening the audience of spiritual music, and sparked the development of the many genres that grew out of the gospel tradition.