"Familiar Favorites" by Matthew Kennedy

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: info@infemnity.com


In anticipation of Matthew Kennedy's 100th birthday celebration, INFEMNITY Productions is happy to promote the popular CD which he titled Familiar Favorites.

The world will be celebrating the 250th birthday of Ludwig von Beethoven on December 17th, and Matthew Kennedy's performance of the second movement (Adagio cantabile) of Beethoven's "Pathétique" Sonata is one of the selections on the CD.

Enjoy this opening clip of the documentary film Matthew Kennedy: One Man's Journey, in which he performs the Beethoven, among other numbers on the CD.



Matthew Kennedy was born on March 10, 1921. The star of his own radio show at age eleven, Matthew played the organ to accompany silent films at the segregated cinema in his home town Americus, Georgia, where he was given the stage name “Sunshine,” and was dressed in a bellhop uniform.

After graduating from Fisk University and Juilliard, he was the director of the world-renowned Fisk Jubilee Singers of Nashville from 1957 to 1986 (intermittently), and performed on the album his solo piano arrangements of some of the spirituals they performed. He also recorded Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp minor, which he heard Rachmaninoff himself perform live in 1932. There is also a Duke Ellington medley.

Read the New York Times review of Matthew Kennedy's New York Debut at Carnegie Recital Hall here.

Regarding his performance of the second movement of Beethoven's "Pathétique" Sonata, when he would perform this at his church (First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill in Nashville), many of the ladies of the congregation would hum the melody along with his performance. I can safely say that most of the little elderly black ladies in Nashville own this CD. Celebrated poet Maya Angelou even said to me when I presented it to her, "Oh, I already have this. And I love it!"

Order Matthew Kennedy's Familiar Favorites at www.infemnity.com/shop.

 

Matthew Kennedy performing at the National Gallery

Enjoy this review of Familiar Favorites in Nashville Scene.

Nina Kennedy is a concert pianist, orchestral conductor, and award-winning filmmaker. She holds a master’s degree from the Juilliard School. Her memoir, "Practicing for Love," is a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist.

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