Award-winning musicians headline upcoming International Freedom Conductor Awards
Cincinnati Opera, Adrian Dunn and Mali Music to perform live during Freedom Center program at the Aronoff Center May 24
CINCINNATI – The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center announced its entertainment lineup for the International Freedom Conductor Awards, presented by Procter & Gamble. The evening recognizing a new class of freedom heroes will maximize the Aronoff Center’s acoustics with multiple live music performances from local and national artists. Tickets for the May 24 International Freedom Conductor Awards are available now.
The International Freedom Conductor Award is the Freedom Center’s highest honor, presented to advocates leading the fight for equity, justice and freedom in the mold of the conductors on the Underground Railroad. This year’s honorees include Opal Lee, the grandmother of Juneteenth; Lonnie G. Bunch III, founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the first African American Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; Toni Morrison, Nobel Prize- and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Beloved, based on the story of Margaret Garner who fled enslavement by crossing the Ohio River; and Isabel Wilkerson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author.
In addition to moments to celebrate and hear from the honorees, the International Freedom Conductor Awards will feature live performances by the Cincinnati Opera, Adrian Dunn and the Adrian Dunn Singers and Mali Music, who will also emcee the event.
The Cincinnati Opera, founded in 1920, is the second-oldest opera company in North America. Its Black Opera Project is the first of its kind, creating a groundbreaking, three-opera commissioning initiative that engages exceptional creators to develop new works celebrating Black stories. The first of its three works will premiere in 2026. Upon the Freedom Center’s opening in 2004, the Cincinnati Opera performed an original work inspired by Margaret Garner, whose flight to freedom ended in tragedy when she and her family were apprehended by slave catchers near the very spot the Freedom Center opened its doors.
Adrian Dunn is a critically acclaimed singer, composer and conductor. His most recent composition, a PBS special titled “Emancipation,” was nominated for two Emmy Awards in 2023 and featured The Adrian Dunn Singers and his Rize Orchestra. He made his European debut in the Klangwolke Festival in Linz, Austria with the Adrian Dunn Singers. In 2022, he made his Ravinia Festival Chicago Symphony Orchestra composer debut. His Adrian Dunn Singers is a group of 12 professional singers of diverse musical backgrounds based in Chicago. Members of the group have trained at some of the top conservatories and universities in the country.
Mali Music is a singer-songwriter and producer. He has released five albums, with his 2014 Mali Is… album peaking at #2 on Billboard’s R&B chart. He has been nominated for four Grammy Awards, winning 2021 Best Gospel Performance/Song for “Movin’ On.” Mali Music also won the 2013 Gospel Music Association Dove Award for Rap/Hip Hop Recorded Song of the Year for “Tell the World” and has been nominated for a BET Award and NAACP Image Award. Mali Music will also serve as the International Freedom Conductor Awards emcee.
The first International Freedom Conductor Award was presented in 1998 to legendary Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks. Since then, an illustrious list has received the honor:
- Rosa Parks, 1998
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 2000
- Dorothy Height and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, 2003
- President George H.W. Bush, 2007
- President Bill Clinton, 2007
- His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, 2010
- Fred Shuttlesworth, 2013
- Nicholas Kristof, 2013
- Lech Walesa, 2014
- Nelson Mandela, 2014
- Nathaniel R. Jones, 2016
- Amal Clooney, 2021
- George Clooney, 2021
- Congressman John Lewis, 2021
- Bryan Stevenson, 2021
The 2025 International Freedom Conductor Awards are presented by Procter & Gamble and will take place May 24 at the Aronoff Center. Tickets are available now at freedomcenter.org.