Celebrate Juneteenth 2026 with a powerful evening honoring the extraordinary contributions of African American women composers to America’s classical music legacy.
Acclaimed baritone Philip Lima returns to Groton Hill Music Center alongside award-winning Steinway Artist Karen Walwyn and members and guests of the Boston Public Quartet, including Groton Hill’s own Alice Hallstrom. Together, they present vocal and instrumental works, with brief commentary, spanning modern American history through the voices of visionary composers including:
- Florence Price
- Margaret Bonds
- Undine Smith Moore
- Mary Watkins
- Jessie Montgomery — 2025 Classical Woman of the Year
PROGRAM TBA
Experience AND SHE’LL RISE, a moving celebration of resilience, artistry, and innovation. Discover the enduring brilliance of these groundbreaking American composers whose once-overlooked works are finally receiving the recognition they deserve.
Thank you to our Juneteenth Community Concert sponsors:
Denali Delmar
Paul and Geraldine Harter
Acton Lions Club
About the Artists
Philip Lima
"A vibrant baritone and a commanding presence" is how concert-goers and critics regularly describe baritone Philip Lima. He has sung leading operatic baritone roles in Germany and for regional American opera companies in repertoire ranging from traditional favorites to important works of modern composers, including new operas incorporating jazz and rock music. Philip has appeared as concert soloist and narrator with the Boston Symphony, numerous times with the Boston Pops, the Vista Philharmonic, and with dozens of other leading ensembles across the United States and in Italy, Korea, and Ukraine in classic choral masterpieces and important modern concert works. A winner of the American Prize as featured soloist on a recording of music by pioneering African-American composer Florence Price, Philip is a native of New Bedford, MA who began his professional musical life as a freelance violinist. He trained vocally at Tanglewood, Boston University, and with Richard Conrad who is remembered for his ground-breaking 1960s collaborations with the immortal Joan Sutherland. Philip’s album, Spirit of a Wayfarer, recorded with pianist Tudor Bota, is available on all major streaming platforms. The release pairs gospel-infused arrangements of African-American spirituals with Gustav Mahler’s melancholic song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. Philip currently serves as the assistant chair of the Voice Department at Berklee College of Music.
Dr. Karen Walwyn
International Steinway Artist and composer Dr. Karen Walwyn is the first African- American female pianist to receive the prestigious Steinway Artist Award. A New York native, she made her solo debut at Merkin Hall following the release of Dark Fires, a groundbreaking 2-CD series for Albany Records featuring premiere recordings of works by African American composers. Of this release the American Record Guide stated “Walwyn's pianism is superb”, while Fanfare Magazine reported “Walwyn gets through this technically demanding program with aplomb.” As a premier champion and scholar of groundbreaking African-American composer Florence Price, Dr. Walwyn famously premiered and recorded Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement. Her performance was hailed by Classical Lost and Found founder Bob McQuiston: “Walwyn provides a magnificent account of the concerto displaying her considerable technical skills”.
The Boston Public Quartet
The Boston Public Quartet is a chamber music ensemble-in-residence in Boston’s diverse neighborhoods dedicated to normalizing the amplification of historically excluded voices in classical music. Led since its inception by violinist and educator Betsy Hinkle, BPQ’s members are graduates of New England Conservatory, Juilliard, Harvard, University of Michigan, University of South Florida, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Florida State University; and regularly collaborate with musicians of the such leading organizations as the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. BPQ is proud to participate in the Mass Cultural Council's Card to Culture program in collaboration with the Department of Transitional Assistance, the Department of Public Health's WIC Nutrition Program, the Massachusetts Health Connector, and hundreds of organizations to make cultural programming accessible to those for whom cost is a participation barrier. EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare cardholders receive free to BPC events.
Founder of the Boston Public Quartet, Betsy Hinkle is a Boston-based violinist dedicated to concert performance and equity-based community education. She has performed throughout New England with groups like the Boston Public Quartet and Boston Ballet Orchestra. A 2018–2020 META Fellow, she serves on the Boston Musicians Association's Anti-Racism Committee and won the 2014 Barbara C. Harris Award for Social Justice. In 2007, Hinkle founded the non-profit musiConnects, serving as Executive and Artistic Director until 2017 and designing curricula through 2021. She holds a Master of Music from the New England Conservatory. Hinkle resides in Roslindale, Massachusetts, with her family.
Jason Amos is the violist for the Boston Public Quartet and spent nine years as a resident musician at musiConnects. Jason began studying viola at age eleven in Southfield, Michigan. He currently serves on the faculty of the New England Conservatory's Summer Orchestra Institute and at Boston’s Project STEP—the String Training Education Program that champions equitable access to comprehensive music education for students from racial and ethnic backgrounds underrepresented in Western classical music. He earned a Graduate Diploma from the New England Conservatory after completing undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan. A 2007 Sphinx Competition laureate, Amos has performed with the Ann Arbor, Sphinx, and Flint Symphony Orchestras. His international engagements include a residency at The Berlin University of the Arts. He also serves on the Boston Arts Academy Advisory Committee.
Violinist Alice Hallstrom and cellist Ricardo Sardiñas join us today as guests of the BPQ.
A Groton Hill Music Center favorite, Alice Hallstrom is the concertmaster of the Vista Philharmonic Orchestra and a Juilliard-trained professional orchestral musician, soloist, and teacher. She has 15 years of principal violin experience with many headlining solo engagements, and she is regularly sought after for a variety of ensemble performances, from duets to chamber music and large orchestras.
Rising cello star Ricardo Sardiñas received his earliest training in his native Havana, Cuba. He currently studies under Rhonda Rider at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where he is enrolled in the prestigious post-graduate Artists Diploma program and has performed as principal cellist of the Boston Conservatory Opera Orchestra and String Orchestra. Ricardo is known for the unbridled energy and enthusiasm he brings to a wide range of solo, chamber, and orchestral performances.
