We Sing America: Planet Word Celebrates the 4th of July

Set in Franklin Park, just outside Planet Word, this community sing-along turns Independence Day into a public performance built around shared voice rather than spectacle. Led by composer Nolan Williams Jr. with a live band and NEWorks Voices of America, the program moves through a broad sweep of American music, from folk traditions and well-known standards to Civil Rights anthems that anchor the afternoon in historical memory as much as melody. Esther Ciammachilli of WAMU guides the gathering as emcee, giving the event a broadcast sensibility even in its open-air format. Rather than staging the audience as spectators, the structure pulls everyone into the performance itself, where picnic blankets and open air replace seats and silence. Produced by Planet Word as part of its wider Language and Liberty programming, the event extends the museum’s focus on language into music, treating song as a living civic archive shaped in real time by the people singing it.