In January, the Philadelphia Orchestra staged its 35th annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Tribute Concert, a free community event that honors the late Civil Rights hero. Storyteller Charlotte Blake Alston hosted the concert, as she has been since 2003 — one of the many roles she has taken on over the course of a long and fruitful partnership with the institution.
Alston started working with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the beginning of her professional storytelling career, in 1991. “Quite honestly, it was serendipity,” she says, recounting how a chance encounter with the orchestra’s then education director led to a unique collaboration. The director, who was rethinking how the orchestra could engage and inspire its youngest listeners, had seen Alston perform at an event where a technical snafu had made the audience restless and unfocused. Alston won back the room (and particularly the youngest audience members) with an energetic and participatory story that would ultimately change the course of her life.
By 1994, Alston had established “Sound All Around,” the orchestra’s participatory program for preschoolers that would become her signature contribution to the institution. She served as a sort of liaison or interpreter between the lively three- to five-year-old participants and the very talented but somewhat stuffy musicians, who were used to performing for adults.
Alston’s background as an educator — she was a teacher before she turned to storytelling — was key to this work, but she had other skills that made her suited to the role. “I grew up in a musical household,” she says, pointing out that all her siblings pursued a course of study in music. Her sister was a vocalist, her brother was a world-renowned jazz violinist, and her mother played the pipe organ and served as choral director at the family’s church.
Last year, Alston finally stepped back from “Sounds All Around,” focusing on programming for adults. She also gained a fancy title, becoming the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Imasogie Storyteller, Narrator, and Host after inspiring a board member to endow an honorary position or storytelling “chair” in perpetuity to the tune of millions.
Each year, for the Martin Luther King, Jr. concert, Alston narrates excerpts from the late leader’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech over Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, one of the most famous pieces of orchestral music in the world. While she has long since learned the words by heart, she still feels the pressure of collaborating at such a high level. “You have to work like a well-oiled machine,” she says. “You have to be tuned into one another to really make the piece work. I feel like I’m representing the credibility of storytelling and storytellers every time I step out on that stage.”
While it’s not uncommon these days for storytellers to partner with prestigious cultural institutions, Alston was one of the first storytellers in the United States to take on such a role. “This is not something I would have ever expected to be part of my life when I stepped out on the path to become a storyteller,” she says. “But it has truly been one of the great gifts of my life to be aligned with this organization.”