The Wilmington Symphony Orchestra will highlight Wilmington’s role as the northern terminus of the Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor with an appearance by celebrated story-teller singer Ron Daise, and conclude with a symphonic work by Florence Price, a Black composer whose music is enjoying a deserved revival. The concert will also feature winners of the 2022 Richard R. Deas Young Artists Concerto Competition.
This concert is sponsored by Ronald Sachs Violins
2022-23 Season is sponsored by REEDS Jewelers, Brightmore of Wilmington, and Carolina Bay at Autumn Hall.
Ron Daise, singer/songwriter:
RON DAISE is an author, performance artist, singer/songwriter, educator, and cultural interpreter. His productions and recordings about Gullah heritage began after the publication of his first book, Reminiscences of Sea Island Heritage, in 1986. Several books and recordings, including his “Gullah Tinks fa Tink Bout” CD, have followed.
Since 2004, DAISE has served as Vice President for Creative Education at Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, SC, where his accomplishments, in part, have garnered him the 2019 SC Governor’s Distinctive Achievement Award. He is known by many as “Mr. Ron” from “Gullah Gullah Island,” the Nick Jr. TV’s award-winning children’s program of the 1990s. Daise also is a former chairman of the federal Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission and currently serves on the Charles Joyner Institute for Gullah and African Diaspora Studies Advisory Board. He is featured in a video exhibit about Black language and speech at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
A native of St. Helena Island, SC, and a graduate of Hampton University in Hampton, VA, Daise and his wife Natalie reside in Georgetown, SC, and are parents of three adult children.
rondaise.com