On Monday, January 19th, the MLK Community Choir celebrated Martin Luther King’s legacy with a free gospel concert at the Nevada Theatre. The choir was led by Stan Thomas-Rose, bringing back the traditional program that was led by Zenobia Brokenbrough and the Bethel AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Choir for forty years, and including them along with about 50 local singers who are seeking to celebrate and strengthen our community and our nation.

The MLK Day noon concert tradition was started in 1982 when Rosa Lopez and Ken Crow invited the Bethel AME Church Choir to broadcast a live performance on KVMR from the Miner’s Foundry, and over the next 40 years the event became a celebrated community tradition which sometimes included local high school choirs and others.

In 2012, an AME choir member, Helena McDaniels, who was also singing with the Trinity Community Chorus (directed by Stan Thomas-Rose) made a connection between the two choirs, and within a few years the two groups became so closely bonded that both directors independently began thinking of the group as “The MLK Choir” instead of as two combined choirs. The noon concert tradition lapsed after the 40th annual concert in 2022, but now Paul Emery, who produced many of the concerts for KVMR, is reviving the tradition with Stan Thomas-Rose as the “official” choir director, but still fully involved with Zenobia and the Bethel AME Choir. Singers from many local churches, the Music in the Mountains and InConcert Sierra choruses and other local groups are represented in this year’s choir.

This year's concert was aimed at building community and uniting our nation peacefully. The program includes speakers and poetry as well as singalongs led by local musicians, patriotic songs, hymns, spirituals, gospel songs, and an original song that’s become our traditional closing. Come and join us as we seek to remember our great legacy and walk together into “that shining city on a hill.”

Davis Memes, host of KVMR's A Higher Lonesome, talks with musician Andres Miguel Cervantes + in-studio performance.

More info on Andrés Miguel Cervante