Project STEP Hosts Free Community Concert Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Project STEP, a Boston nonprofit dedicated to supporting young musicians who are historically underrepresented in classical music, will host a free Community Concert as part of Project STEP’s Annual Concert and Commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Sunday, January 18 at 3 p.m. The event will open with welcome remarks from Élider DiPaula, the new Executive Director of Project STEP. DiPaula is a Brazilian-born arts leader, educator, composer, and performer. 

The concert will feature performances by Project STEP’s talented young musicians, remarks from honored speaker Dr. Alexandria Russell, a historian, author, and member of the Project STEP Board of Directors, and a collective commemoration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

 Honored speakers include Dr. Alexandria Russell, historian, author, Executive Director of the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail, and a member of the Project STEP Board of Directors. She is a non-resident W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellow at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research and the author of Black Women Legacies: Public History Sites Seen and Unseen. She is also the Founder and Executive Director of Black Women Legacies, a nonprofit organization committed to making her research accessible to all. 

Dr. Abdi Mohamed Ali is a member of the Project STEP Board of Directors and a former parent of two Project STEP graduates. Trained in educational ethnography at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, he has taught in Boston Public Schools and co-designed an interdisciplinary humanities and writing program at the Boston Arts Academy. Prior to joining WordPowered, Dr. Ali led the expansion of district-based teacher preparation and licensure programs, establishing a multigenerational teacher pipeline.