NSO Family Concert: This Is the Rope: A Story from the Great Migration

A Kennedy Center and National Symphony Orchestra Commission
NSO World Premiere Family Concert
Based on the book by Jacqueline Woodson
Illustrations by James Ransome
Music by Quinn Mason
Conducted by Kyle Dickson

Featuring Jacqueline Woodson as narrator!

Follow a rope through generations of memories.

During the time of the Great Migration, millions of African American families relocated from the South, seeking better opportunities. The story of one family’s journey north during the Great Migration starts with a little girl in South Carolina who finds a rope under a tree one summer. She has no idea the rope will become part of her family’s history, but for three generations, that rope is passed down.

This world premiere NSO Family Concert features Education Artist-in-Residence Jacqueline Woodson reading This Is the Rope onstage, a new score by Quinn Mason played by the National Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Kyle Dickson, and projected illustrations by Coretta Scott King Award-winner James Ransome.