Jazz Speaks with a New Hope & Sense of Triumph

7:30pm on Friday, January 18

Whitefish Performing Arts Center

127 Spokane Ave.

Love Lives Here in the Flathead is collaborating with Groovetrail and Jazz at Lincoln Center for another amazing night of music to celebrate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King! Our annual celebration is taking place at 7:30 pm on Friday, January 18 at the Whitefish Performing Arts Center. Admission is free, but donations will be accepted at the celebration.

Allen Secher and Erica von Kleist have been working their local and national connections to bring another special lineup. Musicians from Groovetail’s all-star Flathead Ellington Project will be performing alongside Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Academy Alumni. These students, who have studied under the tutelage of trumpeter and Jazz at Lincoln Center’s artistic director Wynton Marsalis, are traveling from in New York City for this event.  

The speaker for the evening is the Wilmot Collins, the current mayor of Helena, who is the first Black mayor in Montana. Mayor Collins is also a former refugee from Liberia who escaped that nation’s First Liberian Civil War in 1994. Since then, he has gained citizenship, served in the US Navy Reserve, worked for the Montana Department of Health and Human Services, raised a family, and supported his community in many ways. He has been featured in national media and recently participated in The Cities of Solidarity Initiative panel at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Dialogue on Protection in Geneva, Switzerland.

“We’re thrilled to be able to bring together musicians from Whitefish with some incredible talent from New York,” said von Kleist. “We’ve been working for months to bring some of music that Dr. King loved right here to the Flathead to celebrate his legacy.”

This event is made possible in collaboration with Groovetrail and Love Lives Here in the Flathead Valley, a nonprofit organization committed to creating a caring, accepting, and diverse community, free from discrimination and dedicated to equal treatment for all citizens. More information can be found at  http://loveliveshereflathead.org.  Love Lives Here in the Flathead Valley is an affiliate of the Montana Human Rights Network.

Sponsorship at many levels is still available for this landmark event! Please email Cherilyn at info@loveliveshereflathead.org for more information.