This week Ray Horner welcomed Akron Symphony Orchestra Music Director Maestro Christopher Wilkins and Gospel Meets Symphony Chorus Master Jennifer Mekel Jones.

Gospel Meets Symphony is considered Akron’s premiere collaborative concert, bringing the greater Akron community together for an unforgettable evening of inspiration and celebration under the direction of the Akron Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director and Conductor, Maestro Christopher Wilkins. Gospel Meets Symphony will also feature appearances by special guests, The LeGrair Brothers. The Gospel Meets Symphony Choir will be led by Chorus Master, Jennifer Mekel Jones.

Click the 'Read More' to listen to the conversation with Ray and these two talented musicians as they highlight one of Akron's biggest musical nights.

1590 WAKR is proud to celebrate the accomplishments, the innovation and the stories that are Black History in America. All month of February, we present the Black History Notes at 7:35am and 5:50pm, featuring Vanessa Williams and brought to you by Metro RTA.

We hope you have a chance to listen in and learn with us the wonderful saga often overlooked in the building of a nation. In the meantime, please take a moment to read the letter below provided by the The Freedmen's Book edited and compiled by Lydia Maria Child. Ms Child has provided this work free of charge and downloadable here.

LETTER FROM A FREEDMAN TO HIS OLD MASTER.

[Written just as he dictated it.]

Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865.

To my old Master, Colonel P. H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee.

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

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