By Howard Pousner
hpousner@ajc.com
MUSIC
Atlanta Music Festival Concert reaches out, back
The “2012 Atlanta Music Festival Concert: Songs of Aspiration, Hope and Progress,” 4 p.m. Nov. 11 in the First Congregational Church sanctuary, has connections to an important event in the city more than a century ago.
Intending to unite communities and bridge traditions, Rev. Dwight Andrews of First Congregational Church and Steven Darsey of the Atlanta music-worship group Meridian Herald launched the Atlanta Music Festival in 2001.
It was something of a homage to the Atlanta Colored Music Festival Association’s debut concert in 1910 that drew 2,000 blacks and whites (seated in separate areas) to Atlanta’s Auditorium and Armory for a concert performed by African-American artists. One of the missions of that event was to encourage social healing after the Atlanta race riot of 1906.
Sunday’s concert will feature performances by spinto tenor Timothy B. Miller, the First Church Chancel Choir …
