ArtBreak: Let Freedom Swing: Jazz Music in American Culture

Led by Rev. Millard Southern, this ArtBreak will feature an interactive, jazz-style conversation on topics such as race, culture, and religion with some of Kalamazoo’s most-sought after and in-demand jazz musicians. Together they will discuss and demonstrate many of the core characteristics of jazz music, as well as the genre’s powerful potential for bringing communities together.

Rev. Southern is the pastor of Allen Chapel AME Church in Kalamazoo, and he also teaches courses in the Shared Passages program at Kalamazoo College. A native of Chicago, he studied theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and earned his Masters in Divinity there in 2010. He is a third-generation pastor, an avid jazz fan, and a musician in his own right.