The music of Grammy Award-winning gospel artist and songwriter Donald Lawrence is considered contemporary. But his songs speak to what it has meant to be Black in America since we arrived.
“When Sunday comes, my trouble’s gone,” the late great Daryl Coley sang on Lawrence’s “When Sunday Comes.” “As soon as it gets here, I’ll have a new song.”
The lyrics are much deeper than making it to church. It reflects our ability to endure, despite the unspeakable atrocities of systemic racial terror and orchestrated inequity. Radical faith and defiant hope – which is apparently within the DNA of Black people – has carried us for centuries.
Lawrence will be the soloist for the 2025 St. Louis Symphony IN UNISON Chorus Lift Every Voice: Celebrating Black History featuring the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. The concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, February 28th at Stifel Theatre.
Hope is echoed in Lawrence’s music. So is self-determination.
“When we speak, we have to speak into our future,” Lawrence told podcaster Michah McLean in a 2023 interview. “Words are very powerful – and they carry a spirit. The words we speak really set the tone for our lives.”
Lawrence has written, produced and performed with some of the biggest names in gospel over his 30-plus years in music. Karen Clark Sheard, Kirk Franklin, Bishop Walter Hawkins, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, Coley, LaShun Pace, Donnie McClurkin, Hezekiah Walker, Richard Smallwood and Le’Andria Johnson are just a few.
Hits like “The Best Is Yet to Come” and “The Blessing of Abraham” have become inspirational music anthems. “Music is a heart thing for me,” Lawrence told McLean. “If I do what my heart dictates, it always hits and touches the people it is supposed to touch.”
One of Lawrence’s biggest hits is adjacent to the messages of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” The Black National Anthem written by James Weldon Johnson 125 years ago –and the namesake of IN UNISON’s concert. The gospel staple “Encourage Yourself” with the Tri-City Singers also reminds Black people of two of our most formidable superpowers – resilience and fortitude.
“Sometimes you have to encourage yourself,” soloist Sherri Jones-Moffitt sings in “Encourage Yourself.” “Sometimes you have to speak victory during the test.”
St. Louis Symphony IN UNISON Chorus will present Lift Every Voice: Celebrating Black History featuring Grammy-winning gospel artist Donald Lawrence at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, February 28 at Stifel Theatre, 1400 Market St. For more information, visit https://slso.org.
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