Queen Latifah will host Philly’s Great Stages gala
The 'Chicago' star will emcee the gala that'll take place after a ceremony commemorating Verizon Hall's renaming for Marian Anderson.
Queen Latifah will host the first official concert in Marian Anderson Hall.
The rapper, singer, and actress will emcee the Great Stages Gala concert at the Kimmel Center on June 8 featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, with soprano Angel Blue, actress and singer Audra McDonald, and pianist Marcus Roberts, the orchestra announced Tuesday.
The concert is set to follow a ceremony that afternoon when Verizon Hall will be officially renamed for Anderson, the Philadelphia contralto who became a key figure in the civil rights movement after being refused a chance to sing in Washington, D.C.’s Constitution Hall because of her race.
The name change was announced in February along with a $25 million gift from philanthropists and arts leaders Leslie Anne Miller and Richard B. Worley, who, instead of renaming the hall for themselves, chose to honor Anderson.
“For many of us, [she] has not been sufficiently recognized, and this was an opportunity. It was so long overdue,” said Miller at the time.
Whether Latifah will also sing at the gala concert hasn’t been decided, said a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center, Inc.
The gala concert’s full program has not been announced, but it will include a piece Anderson sang at the Lincoln Memorial on April 9, 1939 after she was turned away from Constitution Hall: an orchestration of Florence Price’s arrangement of “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord.”
Proceeds benefit restoration of the Academy of Music, along with the “programs, people and venues of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Ensemble Arts, including Marian Anderson Hall,” according to an announcement for the event. The Kimmel Center opened in 2001 with Verizon Hall as the home of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Latifah, currently starring in the CBS show The Equalizer, has straddled various genres since emerging in the late 1980s as a rapper addressing issues facing Black women. She was nominated for a best actress Oscar for her performance in Chicago, in 2003. As a singer, she has sung soul, jazz standards, and hip hop.
Gala + concert tickets begin at $1,500. Concert-only tickets are $48-$129. ensembleartsphilly.org, 215-893-1999.