Home delivery plus 2021 SeRIeS

DAMIEN SNEED & FRIENDS with Special Guest TASHA PAGE-LOCKHART PREMIERING FRI, APR 16, 8pm (ET) STREAMING ON DEMAND THROUGH THU, APR 22, 11:59pm (ET)

Damien Sneed piano and vocals with Tasha Page-Lockhart vocals

Chenee Campbell Justin Cunningham vocals bass guitar Linny Smith Segdrick Marsh vocals drumset Tiffany Stevenson Brandon T. Williams vocals Hammond organ Matia Washington vocals

“Oh, Freedom” “Jehovah God, You Are My All” “To God Be The Glory”* Traditional Damien L. Sneed Andraé Crouch (arr. Damien L. Sneed) “Broken to Minister” “You’ve Got to Move” “He’s Right There Right Damien L. Sneed Traditional By Your Side” and Linny Smith, Jr. (arr. Damien L. Sneed) Damien L. Sneed “Broken to Minister” (reprise)* *Featuring Tasha Page-Lockhart “In a Still Small Voice” “Why Not Me”* Damien L. Sneed Tasha Page-Lockhart

More Info, Series Sales, and Donations: WashingtonPerformingArts.org 1 from the artist

I’m so happy that the premiere of this Home So to have an opportunity to recreate the album’s Delivery Plus performance takes place on the recording session in Washington, D.C. on the same day as the release of my new album, stage of the historic Lincoln Theatre for Unplugged. This is my first studio album for this Washington Performing Arts is a dream come genre of music. I decided to re-record songs true. As an undergraduate student at Howard that I’ve already written before, amongst a few University, I was a student member and re- others. The whole idea is unplugged, relaxed, ceived an immense amount of inspiration from not the typical overly produced project. We want- Washington Performing Arts’s programming ed people to hear the raw execution of what back then. We decided to wear the exact same happened in the studio. The vocalists (all of attire that we wore for our album artwork; yet, whom I’ve worked with before), musicians (who every time we come together, something new had just met each other), and I stepped out on and exciting happens. It is my desire that people faith by recording together in the middle of the are encouraged and uplifted by this concert of pandemic in August 2020 at New York’s AlJo inspirational music as much as it has inspired Studios in Queens, New York. The only prep work me. for the session was in asking my singers which of my previously recorded tunes they’d like to – Damien Sneed revisit.

2 about the artists

As a multi-genre recording artist hometown of Augusta, GA, Sneed studied at some of and instrumentalist, Damien the finest conservatories and universities, including Sneed is a pianist, vocalist, Howard University, where he earned a Bachelor of organist, composer, conductor, Music–Piano Performance; the Peabody Conservatory arranger, producer, and arts of Johns Hopkins University; New York University, educator whose work spans where he earned a Master of Music in Music Tech­ multiple genres. He has worked nology: Scoring for Film and Multimedia; and the with jazz, classical, pop, and Manhattan School of Music. Sneed will graduate with R&B legends, including the late Aretha Franklin and his doctorate in Orchestral Conducting from USC in Jessye Norman, and is featured on Norman’s final May 2021. recording, Bound for the Promised Land, on Albany Sneed is currently a faculty member of the Manhattan Records. He also worked with Wynton Marsalis, School of Music, where he teaches graduate-level Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Ashford & Simpson, J’Nai courses in conducting and African American Music Bridges, Lawrence Brownlee, Brandie, Inez Sutton, History, leads a singer/songwriter ensemble and a and many others. Sneed has served as music director gospel music ensemble, and gives private lessons for Grammy Award–winning gospel artists the Clark in piano, voice, and composition. He recently joined Sisters, Richard Smallwood, Donnie McClurkin, the esteemed faculty of Michigan State University as Hezekiah Walker, Marvin Sapp, Karen Clark Sheard, artist-in-residence for the 2020/21 school year. Sneed Dorinda Clark-Cole, and Kim Burrell, among others. has composed three operas: Empower, commissioned Sneed is a 2020 Dove Award winner and 2021 NAACP by the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2018; Marian’s Song, Image Award–winner for his work as a featured commissioned by Houston Grand Opera in 2019; and producer and writer on the Clark Sisters’ newest The Tongue & The Lash, commissioned by Opera project, The Return (2020). Theatre of Saint Louis, premiering in June 2021. His Sneed is the founder and artistic director of Chorale other professional affiliations have included The Le Chateau, which has gained a global reputation Juilliard School as a staff accompanist, New York for its vivid interpretations of vocal literature, from University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music Renaissance period pieces to art songs to jazz, as a professor, Jazz at Lincoln Center as an artistic spirituals, gospel, and avant-garde contemporary consultant, and the City University of New York (CUNY) music. He is featured on the recording of Wynton as a professor of music. In 2015, Sneed established Marsalis’ Abyssinian Mass as a conductor, with the Damien Sneed Performing Arts Institute, a division Marsalis, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and of the Damien Sneed Foundation. Chorale Le Chateau. Hailing from the historic city of Sneed also has performed at important national and Detroit, Michigan, multi-talented international events, including the 2012 Olympics vocalist Tasha Page-Lockhart is in London and activities related to the inauguration the season six winner of Sunday of President Barack Obama. Sneed performed in Best, BET Network’s hit gospel Washington, D.C., at “A Celebration of America” at singing competition. Tasha is the the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’s daughter of award-winning gospel Eisenhower Theater on the eve of President Obama’s singer Lisa Page Brooks of the inauguration and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 2013. female group Witness, and the granddaughter of The event was hosted by Angela Bassett, Courtney Motown alumni Warren Harris of The Monitors. She Vance, Wynton Marsalis, and retired United States began singing at a young age, recording jingles for Supreme Court Chief Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. companies such as Chrysler, Bisquick, K-Mart, In addition, in 2008, he conducted the world premiere the Detroit Red Wings, and United Way. In 2001, of Wynton Marsalis’s Abyssinian Mass with the Jazz she became the youngest member of her mother’s at Lincoln Center Orchestra and a 150-voice choir. award-winning group with her album, An Appointed He has also conducted the Mass in London and on a Time. After winning season six of BET’s Sunday Best in 16-city U.S. tour. 2013, Lockhart received a national recording contract A recipient of a 2014 Sphinx Medal of Excellence and with Kirk Franklin and became the first female artist a graduate of John S. Davidson Fine Arts School in his signed to Fo Yo Soul Recordings/RCA records. 3 In 2014, Franklin released Tasha’s debut album, Here music is sold and streamed online. She has also won Right Now, featuring the hit singles “Different” and the award for Female Vocalist of the Year in the U.K. for “Faith Come Alive.” Since the release of her album, the Gospel Music Touch Awards. Tasha also operates Tasha has remained a force in the music industry, as a certified Life Coach and Peer Recovery Specialist. with electrifying performances on BET’s Celebration She will be re-releasing her first book, And The of Gospel, Bobby Jones Gospel, the BMI Trailblazers Winner Is… Tasha Page-Lockhart Uncut. In the Awards, 106 & Park, TV One, the Stellar Awards, and beginning of 2019, she brought home the Stellar countless other TV outlets. Tasha has toured House Award for Contemporary Female Vocalist of the Year of Blues/Live Nation and McDonald’s Inspiration and Female Vocalist of the Year in the U.K. once Celebration of Gospel Tour. She also toured with Tyler again. Being a survivor of rape and overcoming drug Perry for the play, Madea on the Run and is featured on addiction herself, she is now dedicated to helping the DVD, currently available everywhere. others on the road to recovery. Tasha recently inked a Lockhart was the lead actress in a movie called Who deal with California-based record label Heritage Music Can I Run To, which aired on TV One and Centric. In Group (Legacy), headed by CEO Jovan Dawkins. She is March 2015, Tasha was awarded her first Stellar Award married to Dr. Veron House, and together, they Pastor for New Artist of the Year. a church in Mt. Vernon, NY. In October 2017, Lockhart released her sophomore album, The Beautiful Project, available everywhere

linger longer host

Michele Fowlin (Artistic Director, in Russia, England, Spain, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Children of the Gospel Choir) has She has performed for dignitaries including Supreme cultivated her love and passion for Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, former President music from a young age. At the age Obama, former Vice Presidents Biden and Gore, former of nine, Ms. Fowlin was accepted into Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Ambassador the Juilliard School’s pre-college Sasae of Japan, and numerous others, and as part of program for aspiring young music­ former First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let Girls Learn” ­ians, as a piano student. She Campaign. won a variety of piano competitions and awards and After Howard, Ms. Fowlin continued her vocal career participated in many festivals both nationally and while expanding her skills as a music teacher in the internationally. Her musical pursuits eventually led her public school system. Her desire to motivate students to focusing on the voice and conducting. musically has extended from the classroom into the She attended Howard University and earned community. Ms. Fowlin has worked with Washington her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Vocal Performing Arts Children of the Gospel Choir as a Performance/Pedagogy with a piano minor. While at music director, vocal coach and is the director of Howard, she studied with renowned opera singers choral programs at Eleanor Roosevelt High School Regina McConnell, Carmen Balthrop, and Charlotte (MD), and has conducted various church choirs in the Holloman. Under the tutelage of Dr. James Weldon area. She continues to hold clinics for vocal health and Norris, she was introduced to conducting. Ms. Fowlin wellness, voice and piano master classes and guest eventually became the Assistant to the Conductor for directorships for gospel music workshops. Ms. Fowlin the University Choirs. Upon traveling with the choir has been recognized with various awards including the nationally and internationally, Ms. Fowlin conducted Mayor’s Arts Award, a Certificate of Recognition from many concerts and eventually became one of the lead the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and soloists. These opportunities led her to performances Who’s Who Among American Teachers.

4 special thanks

event sponsors

This performance is made possible through the generous support of Mike and Luanne Gutermuth, Gary and Silvia Yacoubian and SVS Home Audio, and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Linger Longers on Home Delivery Plus are made possible through the generous support of an anonymous donor.

series sponsors

Thank you to the following lead supporters of Washington Performing Arts’s mission-driven work in 2020/21, including presentation of Home Delivery Plus: Jacqueline Badger Mars and Mars, Incorporated; D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities; Betsy and Robert Feinberg; Dr. Gary Mather and Ms. Christina Co Mather; the National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs Program and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts; Tom Gallagher; The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; and the Dallas Morse Coors Foundation for the Performing Arts.

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