In a deeply resonant Spoleto Festival USA debut and return to Mother Emanuel AME Church, acclaimed bass-baritone Davóne Tines presents a performance that bridges memory, community, and song. As part of Spoleto Festival USA’s Free Community Programming, this special concert brings Tines together with his ensemble, THE TRUTH, alongside singers and praise leaders from Mother Emanuel, creating a shared musical experience rooted in place and spirit. 

Centered on the question “What needs to be revived in us?”, the program—titled REVIVAL—invites audiences into that inquiry not as observers, but as participants. Through music, text, and testimony, Tines and his collaborators open a space where listening, reflection, and presence become active forms of renewal. 

Tines’s return to Mother Emanuel is both artistic and deeply personal, shaped in part through his work on Homegoing, a collaboration with filmmaker Julie Dash created in remembrance of the Emanuel Nine. This performance extends that act of remembrance into a living, communal setting. Developed in collaboration with Mother Emanuel’s extended community and historian Lee Bennett, REVIVAL draws on the traditions of the AME Church and the structure of the revival service, building on themes first explored in Tines’s Recital No. 1: MASS. 

Blending music from the Black performative canon with spoken reflection and collective encounter, the program moves between meditative intensity and charged stillness—inviting each listener into attention, recognition, and release. Within the walls of Mother Emanuel, music becomes an offering: a way to honor the past, hold the present, and carry a renewed sense of spirit and shared humanity back into the world. 

Davóne Tines, bass-baritone
Deshaun Gordon King, flute and sound healing practitioner
John Bitoy, piano
Khari Lucas, bass and sound artist

Shira Kagan-Shafman, producer