The Harvest Home Concert: A Midtown Thanksgiving

The Harvest Home Concert is Redeemer’s musical celebration of Thanksgiving, a quintessentially American holiday, a celebration that crosses all barriers, featuring Redeemer choirs and instrumentalists. We look at human values of Harvest, Family, Feast and Home through a modern midtown Atlanta perspective, and in the process we discover those things we are most grateful for. On the occasion of our country’s 250th birthday, we recognize that our viewpoint is shaped by the paths that brought us here, so we sing of Our American Journeys.

Our musical journey begins with the indigenous people on whose land we gather. We sing songs of the colonial years from William Billings, the first American-born composer to publish a collection of his own work, printed by Paul Revere. His rough-hewn, energetic tunes fueled the Revolution. The concert will include or reference the heritage of folk songs (some brought with us as we immigrated) and spirituals, and works by American icons like Randall Thompson, George Gershwin, Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, Stephen Paulus and familiar tunes like My Country ‘tis of thee, Fanfare for the Common Man, This is my song, and America, the Beautiful.

The heart of the concert arises from Langston Hughes’ 1936 poem Let America Be America Again, in a setting by Gwyneth Walker for speaker and instruments, reminiscent of Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait. Hughes’ poem will be performed by Rob Cleveland, an award winning author, professional storyteller, accomplished film and stage actor, as well as a popular comedian. The author invites us to understand our different experiences of the American dream, our journeys through 250 years. He challenges us to look honestly at the disparities of the American present, and join together to realize the potential of the American future. The bracing words of Hughes are answered by a second piece, America Will Be by Joel Thompson. Thompson quotes from the Hughes poem, extracts from Emma Lazarus’ The New Colossus, inspired by the Statue of Liberty, and includes phrases of optimism and hope from Florida high school students in the languages of the countries from which they immigrated to the United States, in a stirring vision of our future together.