Jesse Ayers' The Passion of John Brown for orchestra and narrator, premiered October 17, 2009, performed by the Akron Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Christopher Wilkins with Broadcasters' Hall of Fame inductee Leon Bibb narrating.         

The 19-minute work was commissioned by the orchestra in observance of the 150th anniversary of John Brown's raid on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry which helped spark the American Civil War.       

Brown lived in the Akron area for many years and is among its most famous citizens.

Assisting in the performance were Malone University vocal majors Matthew Clear, Daniel Liebman, and Andrew Black [in photo at left], all of whom have studied music analysis with Dr. Ayers.

The concert date was the exact anniversary of the Harper's Ferry raid.

Maestro Wilkins conceived the idea of commissioning a narrated work about Brown and suggested the marvelous, double-entendre title.

John Brown died a controversial figure, demonized by some and admired by others.  Ayers' work tells John Brown's story, the good and the bad, through Brown's own words, as well as the words of two of Brown's surviving offspring, Brown's friend abolitionist Fredrick Douglass, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, who witnessed Brown's hanging, and the widow of a man Brown ordered killed. It also quotes John Brown's favorite hymn, Blow Ye the Trumpet, Blow, and uses musical material from the hymn as symbolic bugle calls echoed by surround-sound trumpets.