Artist profiles Revolutionary Snake Ensemble Odaiko New England Liber UnUsualis Julie Kaufmann Dancin' Trent Arterberry Tony V Janice Allen Airborne Comedians Opera UnMet William Tremblay and Rob Gonsalves Excelsior Artie Barsamian Weepin' Willie Karen Aqua and Jane Gillooly Harriet Casdin-Silver and Kevin Brown Through the Looking Glass Artists Mitch Ryerson Babaloo Angry Salad Leeny Del Seamonds and Gideon Freudmann Program guide Events by category Friday's schedule Saturday's schedule Sunday's schedule More information The basics; tips; highlights Last-minute ideas Return to the main feature Official First Night site Weekly Health | Science (Mon.) Food (Wed.) Calendar (Thu.) At Home (Thu.) Picture This (Fri.) Sunday Automotive Focus Learning Magazine New England Real Estate Travel City Weekly South Weekly West Weekly North Weekly NorthWest Weekly NH Weekly Features Archives Book Reviews Columns Comics Crossword Horoscopes Death Notices Lottery Movie Reviews Music Reviews Obituaries Special Reports Today's stories A-Z TV & Radio Weather Classifieds Autos Classifieds Help Wanted Real Estate Help Contact the Globe Send us feedback Alternative views Low-graphics version Acrobat version (.pdf)

COVER STORY First Night 2000: A sampler Songs of freedom     MORE INFORMATION Thurs. 5-5:30 p.m. and Sun. 5:30-6:30 p.m. City Hall Plaza "2000 Voices" When Janice Allen was a just a kid, she used to sit in the congregation at Boston's Blue Hill Protestant Center and listen, rapt, to the harmonies of Virgil Wood's Freedom Choir. "I was happy and proud to be who I was, listening to them," remembers Allen. "They sang songs about the freedom movement. I learned a lot about my history." Allen grew up with songs about the civil rights movement. For First Night, at the opening and closing ceremonies, Allen will conduct the Freedom Inspirational Singers in "2000 Voices," a program of songs celebrating freedom and spanning a range of eras and a variety of cultures. "This Little Light of Mine" is on the bill, as is "Eyes on the Prize" and South African songs such as "Thula Sizwe (I Shall Be Released)." The choristers also plan to sing a piece composed especially for First Night, "The Millennium Song," by Tim McHale. They'll sing it in concert with the public, led by McHale and Boston's irrepressible leader of public sing-ins, Nick Page. Allen wasn't inspired only by church music. In the late '60s, she was one of a handful of African-Americans in her South Boston junior high school - this was before US Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. ordered Boston schools to desegregate. "I had a teacher named Clifford Weeks who discovered I had singing skills. He took me and three other African-American girls and we had a singing group called the Soulettes," she recalls. "At the time, I had all this attention paid to what I couldn't do, and he paid attention to what I could do. I decided I wanted to be an inspiration as he was to me." Today, Allen teaches at the Park School in Brookline and conducts a gospel choir at Concord Academy. "It's my ministry," she says. First Night is "another wonderful place to spread the good news through music," Allen adds. "We've got so many people from different walks in this group - doctors, lawyers, astrologers, children and adults. You name it. And we come together and we make joyous music together." - Cate McQuaid Previous page | Next page

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