BALTIMORE — Music, history and community will come together this weekend in Baltimore's historic Jonestown neighborhood for the inaugural Voices in Solidarity: Baltimore’s Black and Jewish Operatic History festival.
Led by Opera Baltimore, the event is designed to celebrate the longstanding connections between Black and Jewish communities while encouraging meaningful dialogue about the past, present and future.
Nicole Steinberg, Cultural Programs Coordinator of Opera Baltimore, said music serves as a powerful way to bring people together, especially in spaces where conversations can sometimes feel difficult.
Opera Baltimore is bringing communities together with new Voices in Solidarity festival on Aug 30
"Music is an entry point that takes a space that people may not feel welcome in on a normal basis and opens the door," Steinberg said.
The festival is part of Opera Baltimore's ongoing work to use vocal arts as a tool for community engagement thanks to grant funding from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority. Steinberg said organizers hope participants will build civic pride by examining the shared history.
"We're not necessarily putting on rose-colored glasses to look at this history," Steinberg said. "We're saying this is the good, this is the bad, and we need to talk about it and address it in order for us as a community to move forward and heal."
The day-long event will begin with pop-up musical performances in the courtyard of the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House. Attendees can take part in walking tours connecting several sites throughout Jonestown.
"Really connecting physically these spaces that are only about three or four blocks apart," Steinberg said. "And here in Jonestown, which has historically been both a Black and Jewish neighborhood."
The Jewish Museum of Maryland and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum are partnering on the event and will feature artifacts inside the Lewis that help tell the story of the two communities' intertwined histories.
Terry Taylor-Nock of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum said the partnership was a natural fit.
"We've done programs at both sites, shared bread together and feasted," Taylor-Nock said. "When this program came along with Opera Baltimore and the Jewish Museum of Maryland, it was like a no-brainer."
Taylor-Nock pointed to examples of cultural collaboration throughout history.
"You look at Billie Holiday and 'Strange Fruit,' her singing this song that actually was composed by a Jewish composer-songwriter," Taylor-Nock said. "There always has been that natural rhythm between both groups."
That connection will be highlighted throughout the festival and culminate in an evening concert at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum featuring baritone Daniel Rich, a Baltimore native, and soprano Sarah Duchovnay, who has roots in Pikesville.
Steinberg said the music featured throughout the day reflects more than a century of shared artistic influences.
"Music is this great equalizer," Steinberg said. "There is music between Black and Jewish communities that is very similar. They've taken and echoed each other for the last century and a half, and there's much more that we have in common than what there is that divides us."
Voices in Solidarity will take place Sunday, Aug. 30, from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Jonestown.
Organizers hope the festival will serve as the beginning of an ongoing effort to strengthen relationships between communities across Baltimore.
"We're just thrilled to be part of it and hopefully be stewards of that change and use music to do so," Steinberg said.
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