Kirk Edwards composed his “Martin Luther King Jr. March” in the mid-1990s in support of the holiday commemorating King’s life and legacy, at a time when the holiday hadn’t yet been made an official state government holiday in all 50 states.

The U.S. Coast Guard Band, of which Edwards was a member, played the "Martin Luther King Jr. March" twice back when he composed it.

On this year's Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Jan. 17, the piece will be performed again in New London, this time by the New London Community Orchestra. It will be part of the orchestra's “Concert for Healing” at the Garde Arts Center, and the show will feature an array of music, from orchestral works by Black composers to civil rights anthems.

Edwards has a long history in music, particularly in southeastern Connecticut. He was a saxophonist and clarinetist with the Coast Guard Band from 1981 to 2000 and then became Cadet Band Director at the Coast Guard Academy before retiring in 2011 after more than three decades of service.

He performs in the Madry Temple Church Band, the Coalition Jazz Band, and many chamber music groups.

And he has been a member of the New London Community Orchestra (NLCO) for about five years and is the group’s principal clarinet player, as well as being a board member.

When he told NLCO President Tom Clark about the “Martin Luther King Jr. March,” the idea percolated for the orchestra to play it during a concert. Edwards created an orchestral arrangement of the piece for the group.

In composing a work in honor of King, Edwards says he thought it was proper to create a march, since King famously held and participated in civil rights marches.

He did a fair amount of research about King. During his travels with the Coast Guard Band, Edwards was in Memphis and was able to visit the Lorraine Hotel, where King was assassinated in 1968. The band also performed for a music conference in Atlanta that was around the corner from the Ebenezer Baptist Church and the Center for Nonviolent Social Change — the Martin Luther King District where his home was.

Edwards tried to capture the majestic aspect of King’s marches in the first strain of his composition, followed by a second strain that imitated the call-and-response of a Baptist preacher, which King was.

He calls the end result kind of a collage; within the march, he uses segments from other compositions. He references “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” because King, just before he was shot, reportedly asked a saxophonist who was outside his Memphis hotel balcony to play that piece.

And Edwards superimposes a bit of “America the Beautiful” partially as a reminder that King was American and, at the end, he weaves in “We Shall Overcome.”

“I thought it would be nice to end it on an optimistic, forward-looking note,” Edwards says.

Edwards says having the composition performed now is “surreal — I didn’t know that I would ever hear it again.”

Incredible people, incredible works

Edwards’ “Martin Luther King Jr. March” is part of the first half of the concert, along with four other works by Black composers.

“All of these are incredible people and incredible works,” says Hilarie Clark Moore, the NLCO’s music director.

They include the updated “Suite of Dances” by Florence Price, who, Clark Moore says, is “very hot” right now and can be heard on the radio.

Then there is the "In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy” by William Grant Still, which he wrote for WWII soldiers. He said he hopes “that our tribute to those who died will make the democracy for which they fought greater and broader than it has ever been before.”

“That is so notable,” Moore says, mentioning that Black American soldiers fought for democracy abroad but didn’t have it at home.

They will also perform “Lyric for Strings” by George Walker, who was the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Moore says it’s a mournful tune that is often played at funerals and “wonderful services for horrible things in our country.”

On the program, too, is a movement from Mary Watkins’ larger piece “Five Movements in Color for Orchestra,” about the African-American experience. The NLCO will play the second movement, which Moore says reflects “the profound grief felt by newly arrived Africans (in) a strange land, leaving their life behind, and in spite of their trauma — being enslaved, dehumanized, degraded, oppressed — they carried essential wisdom and spiritual knowledge. It’s supposed to be actually of their despair but also hope, that they have that inner strength from many generations before."

“It’s a very powerful piece," she adds. "It is supposed to be a song of sorrow and a song of hope together.”

The second half of the concert consists of civil rights anthems performed by vocalists and the orchestra, including “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often called the “Black national anthem,” which will feature soloist Katim Brown. The segment of civil rights anthems in the NLCO concert will conclude with “We Shall Overcome” and “Amazing Grace,” with audience participation on both.

These anthems tend to be performed with perhaps a guitar or piano, but Edwards has written full orchestral scores for them for the NLCO.

Clark says the only reason the NLCO can play the anthems “is because Kirk has done the arrangements for an orchestra for these anthems. He’s involved in all these different slices of the operation here. We wouldn’t be here, and we wouldn’t be performing it the way we’re performing it, if it weren’t for Kirk.”

Bringing people together

Clark says the hope with the concert is to expose people to contemporary Black composers they might not know as well as to historic Black composers.

And, he says, “Every time you can get people together … people from all communities coming together and having an emotional experience together, … that is one of the things we can do to help push the story forward about social justice. It’s not everything, of course, but these kinds of efforts do help push the social justice issue forward."

Moore adds, “It’s what we can do as an orchestra.”

Edwards says, “It’s amazing the impact music has, the messages and themes. It sort of just sticks in your mind for a long time.”

Clark notes that King wanted to have music as part of everything he did; he thought music was very important and provided an emotional connection to the civil rights struggle.

“We’re here to honor Dr. King and his work, so it’s an excellent way to do that,” he says.

If you go

What: "Martin Luther King Day Concert for Healing"

Who: New London Community Orchestra

Where: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 17

Where: Garde Arts Center, 325 State St., New London

Admission: Free

Required: Masks and vaccination card or negative test within 72 hours are required.

Visit: nlcommunityorchestra.org