Regional musicians prepare for 'Our Voices Rise Together' concert

KINGSPORT — Nearly 24 hours before showtime, musicians from across the region gathered in Kingsport on Friday to rehearse for the "Our Voices Rise Together" concert. The afternoon rehearsal was held at Toy F. Reid Eastman Employee Center, with Symphony of the Mountains Music Director/Conductor Cornelia Laemmli Orth at the helm. Joshua Shepherd, Symphony of the Mountains director of operations, said the performance will be a great way to bring the community together with music from Broadway, spirituals, gospel music and original music by Amythyst Kiah. "We're having a great Black history celebration concert that's going to be comprised of the Symphony of the Mountains, as well as several local choirs," he said. "We're also going to be featuring Amythyst Kiah and also Michael Rodgers, and we have a visual artist Jay Flack, who's going to be painting during one of our pieces on the program." The event is presented by Symphony of the Mountains and Eastman Chemical Co. Shepherd said the symphony has a long-standing relationship with the Toy F. Reid Center and wanted a venue large enough to hold the expected audience. "We are almost at 1,800 people capacity for this concert," he said. Eastman partnership Karen Ellison, technology manager at Eastman, called the performance an "exciting event" for the company. She said this is the third event of its kind done in partnership with the symphony. "This was something, a partnership that we started with them back in 2020 to really give something to our community and to celebrate arts and education," Ellison said. "The theme for the event is our voices rise together. So it's all about what we can do as a collective bringing our individual strengths and talents to make something wonderful. " More than 400 performers are expected to be involved in Saturday's performance, Ellison said, including ETSU's Gospel and International Choir; Mountain Mission School Choir; Unity Choir; UVA-Wise Concert Choir and local church and university choirs. Pre-show activities will include artwork displays and music performed by the Science Hill Steeltoppers steel pan ensemble. Ellison said the contents of the show and pre-show will have strong representation of East Tennessee throughout. "We have two exhibits, one by Jay Flack, who is going to be part of the symphony performance; he has some of his art on display," Ellison said. "Then we're also going to have an exhibit from the ETSU Slocumb Galleries called 'Crafting Blackness.' This is celebrating Black craft that has been around since the 1920's up to today." Ellison said the event is all about engaging the community and giving people access to the different musical artists. "That's one of the things that we wanted to be able to do was to give that to the community, and again just to celebrate our voices rising together," she said. The concert will kick off at 7 p.m. Saturday at Toy F. Reid Eastman Employee Center (400 S. Wilcox Drive). For more information or to secure a ticket, visit https://symphonyofthemountains.org/event/our-voices-rise-together-2026/.