The documentary film entitled “Matthew Kennedy: One Man’s Journey” will be screened at the Harlem School of the Arts (645 St. Nicholas Avenue at 141st Street) on Friday, October 22nd at 7 pm. The film was awarded the prize for Best Film by a Black Filmmaker at the Nashville Film Festival. It was also selected and screened at the Pan-African Film Festival of Los Angeles, and had its New York premiere as part of the African Diaspora Film Festival at Columbia University.
This marks the first feature-length film of director Nina Kennedy, Matthew’s daughter. Her films have been selected for screenings at the Berlin International Film Festival, as well as international film festivals in Frankfurt, Jerusalem, London, Munich, Oslo, Atlanta, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
Matthew Kennedy, African-American concert pianist and composer, was born in the segregated South in 1921, and was known throughout his home state of Georgia as a child-prodigy. He attended the Juilliard School in New York, traveled the world as a concert pianist, and directed the world-renowned Fisk Jubilee Singers of Nashville, Tennessee from 1957 to 1986.
Founded in 1871, the Jubilee Singers are best known for their a cappella renditions of “Negro Spirituals.” They were the first group of former slaves to sing plantation folksongs for the Queen of England, thus earning the capital for the construction of Fisk University.
The film is available on DVD. The soundtrack CD is also available.
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