A Juneteenth Celebration

CHRISTOPHER WILKINS was appointed Music Director of the Boston Landmarks Orchestra in the spring of 2011. Since then, he has expanded the orchestra’s mission of making great music accessible to the whole community. He has also helped develop the orchestra’s Breaking Down Barriers initiative, making accessibility a priority in all aspects of the orchestra’s activities.

Mr. Wilkins also serves as Music Director of the Akron Symphony. As a guest conductor, Mr. Wilkins has appeared with many of the leading orchestras of the United States, including those of Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco. Previously, Mr. Wilkins served as Music Director of the Orlando Philharmonic, the San Antonio Symphony, and the Colorado Springs Symphony.

He has served as associate conductor of the Utah Symphony, assisting Joseph Silverstein; assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra under Christoph von Dohnányi; conducting assistant with the Oregon Symphony under James DePreist; and was a conducting fellow at Tanglewood. He was winner of the Seaver/NEA Award in 1992.

Born in Boston, Mr. Wilkins earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College in 1978. He received his master of music degree at Yale University in 1981, and in 1979 attended the Hochschule der Künste in West Berlin as a recipient of the John Knowles Paine traveling fellowship. As an oboist, he performed with many ensembles in the Boston area, including the Berkshire Music Center Orchestra at Tanglewood, and the Boston Philharmonic under Benjamin Zander.

SIRGOURNEY COOK, a professional opera singer and educator, is a Chicago, IL native.

In 2010, she earned a Bachelor of Music Degree and a minor in Philosophy from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. She debuted with the Goodman Theatre of Chicago in the Linz, Austria premier production of Joan Dark (Director, Aida Karic), in collaboration with the Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture Festival. Sirgourney completed her graduate education at the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge, MA in May of 2016; where for two years she was a Presidential Scholar and earned a Master of Music Degree in Opera Performance. She was a student of the late renowned baritone, Robert Honeysucker.

Prior to pursuing graduate education, for more than three years, Sirgourney toured as the soprano background vocalist for Oscar and Grammy Award Winning actress and recording artist, Jennifer Hudson, performing nationally and internationally at events such as President Barack Obama’s 50^th Birthday Celebration and Second Campaign Party, the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway, and The Grammy Academy’s 2019 Tribute to Aretha Franklin. Sirgourney was the featured soloist in Duke Ellington’s “Concerts of Sacred Music” conducted by Ellington’s protégé, Maestro Randall Keith Horton, at Boston University’s 2017 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Commemoration.

Passionate about arts, education and accessibility, from 2014-2016, Sirgourney served as a Graduate Teaching Fellow at the David A. Ellis Elementary School in Roxbury, MA in partnership with Longy School of Music of Bard College and Boston Public Schools. She also served as the Performing Arts Teacher for grades 5-8 at Roxbury Preparatory Charter School of Dorchester, MA. Sirgourney was cast as a handmaid in The Boston Lyric Opera’s 2019 production of Poul Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale. In 2017, Sirgourney performed the role of Aphrodite in the world premiere of the opera Triangle, composed by Tony Solitro with the Boston Opera Collaborative. Additionally, in 2017, she debuted her one-woman show, What Am I Doing Here?, at the Central Square Theatre, in Cambridge, MA, as an Artist-in-Residence with The Boston Opera Collaborative of which she was a member for two years. In 2018, she performed the principal role, Cora (Nat Turner’s wife), in the world premiere of the musical production, Brother Nat written by Liana and Jabari Asim and composed by Allyssa Jones at the Paramount Theatre in Boston, MA.  Sirgourney made her debut with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra in their 2019 Summer Concert Series performing the aria Song to the Moon from Dvorak’s Rusalka. In 2021, she made her debut with JoAnn Falletta, and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra for the return of JoAnn’s Classical Christmas concert,, and was most recently heard with conductor Anthony Parnther and the BPO Pops: Hooray for Hollywood! concert, performing Salammbo’s Aria from Bernard Hermann’s Citizen Kane.

Sirgourney continues promoting  the transformative power of music and education in many leadership capacities throughout the Northeast region, including her work as former Executive Director of Buffalo, NY’s King Urban Life Center and Adjunct Professor of Music at Houghton University Buffalo, former board member of the Kleinhans Music Hall, through her membership in the The Links, Incorporated and as a newly elected board member of CCMpower at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. Sirgourney shares in her life’s walk with her best friend and husband, the Rev. Julian Armand Cook, and their son, Langston.

MARIANA GREEN-HILL is Founder and Director of Four Strings Academy, an intensive string program held during the summer geared to children, ages 4-18 and some adults, demonstrating the potential to become professional musicians and love for the art form.

Along with these responsibilities, she currently serves as Artistic Advisor to the Artistic Director of Project STEP program located in Boston’s Symphony Hall, where she teaches, coaches and advises students and parents grades K-12. Ms. Green-Hill also performs in various venues as a soloist and chamber musician and teaches privately and as a member of the New England Conservatory’s Preparatory Division.

Ms. Green-Hill is a multi-prize Winner of The Sphinx Competition as well as the recipient of the 2009 Sanford Allen Award in recognition of her “artistic merit, persistence, and extraordinary achievement.” She has also won first place in the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Harry and Marion Dubbs Competitions. Ms. Green-Hill has been a featured guest soloist with the New Jersey, Memphis, Detroit, and Boston Symphony Orchestras and The Boston Pops. In addition to her solo performances, she is an experienced chamber and orchestral musician.  The Amaryllis String Quartet, of which she was a member, was awarded First Prize in the prestigious Fischoff Chamber Music Competition (Jr. Division).  Ms. Green-Hill has performed with YoYo Ma, Pamela Frank, Lynn Chang, Marcus Thomson, and with members of the Houston and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras. She was also a member of the Young Eight String Octet for six seasons.