PA Students to White House

From the inbox:

Students from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s Central High School will be among 120 high school students from across the country to attend and participate in a music workshop at the White House hosted by First Lady Michelle Obama. The workshop is entitled “Music that Inspired the Movement,” and it will take place on Wednesday, February 10th from 1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. ET. It will be led by several performers from the 2010 White House Music Series concert “In Performance at the White House: A Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement” which will also take place on Wednesday. As developed by the Grammy Museum, the students participating in the workshop will learn about the continuing relevance of music from the Civil Rights Movement to today’s generation and its original impact in the 1960s. This event will be streamed live on www.whitehouse.gov/live.

Robert Santelli, the executive director of The GRAMMY Museum, and Smokey Robinson, the legendary Motown singer, will facilitate the workshop. John Legend, John Mellencamp, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon – one of the original Freedom Singers in the 1960s, who traveled around the country carrying stories in song of local Civil Rights Movement campaigns to national audiences – and Toshi Reagon will perform. This workshop will be held in the State Dining Room and students all over the country are invited to watch the workshop live and submit questions for the performers and facilitators leading up to the event. Several questions received through the online form will be answered at the workshop and following the event. Questions may be submitted prior to the workshop at www.whitehouse.gov/civil-rights-music. The livestream embed code will also be available on this webpage.

The 2010 White House Music Series concert “In Performance at the White House: A Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement” will be a concert celebrating Black History month and it will also take place on February 10. Participants include Yolanda Adams, Joan Baez, Natalie Cole, Bob Dylan, Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, John Mellencamp, Smokey Robinson, Seal, the Blind Boys of Alabama, the Howard University Choir, and The Freedom Singers, featuring Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Rutha Harris, Charles Neblett and Toshi Reagon. Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Queen Latifah and Joanne Woodward will be guest speakers for this concert which will feature songs from the Civil Rights Movement as well as readings from famous Civil Rights speeches and writings. The President will make opening remarks at this concert held in the East Room of the White House. This concert will be pooled press and streamed live on www.whitehouse.gov/live starting at 5:15 p.m. ET.

The concert will be televised on February 11th at 8:00 p.m. ET on public broadcasting stations nationwide as part of WETA Washington, D.C.’s “In Performance at the White House” series. NPR will also produce a one-hour concert special from this event for broadcast nationwide on NPR Member stations throughout the month of February, beginning February 12th. The special will be available on www.npr.org/music.

First Lady Michelle Obama kicked off the White House Music Series last year with a Jazz Studio, and since then has hosted a celebration of Country Music, a Fiesta Latina and a celebration of Classical Music. Many of these events included evening performances as well as daytime educational workshops designed to educate and inspire talented young people to use their gifts to develop a future for themselves in the arts community whether as a hobby or as a profession.