Hannibal Lokumbe's 'Can You Hear God Crying' premieres at Kimmel Center Friday

Birth isn't often pretty.

Such was the reassurance offered at Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, where combined choirs from all around Philadelphia were navigating the thickets of the newest Hannibal Lokumbe cast-of-hundreds piece, Can You Hear God Crying?, to premiere Friday at the Kimmel Center.

"You can't do this by ear," exclaimed conductor Donald Dumpson, who has prepared several of Lokumbe's works. "One person off is unacceptable."

"But if you think about the music too hard you'll miss it," said Lokumbe. "This [piece] is you."

Lokumbe, Texas-born and -based, first came to Philadelphia in 1974 in jazz clubs as a trumpeter. Now 63, he still plays a hot trumpet but is more associated with concert halls, starting in 1990 with African Portraits, which was picked up by the Chicago Symphony and recorded under Daniel Barenboim. His One Heart Beating was among the Philadelphia Orchestra's 100th anniversary commissions.

The new piece, commissioned by Philadelphia philanthropist Carole Haas Gravagno, is about the composer's great-great-grandfather, who was born in the Sahara, kidnapped and enslaved in Liberia, and sold at auction in Charleston, S.C. He escaped to Texas, where he bought land and had a family.

The forces at the Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall will include players from the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia under Dirk Brossé, vocal soloists, and a virtuoso on the stringed Afghan rabâb. But, as with most Lokumbe works, the chorus is the soul of a piece encompassing jazz, gospel, tribal music, and an aspect participants describe vaguely as "the Hannibal factor."

"It's tremendously different kind of work for them," said choirmaster Dumpson.

The choir is as eclectic as the jazz/gospel/classical music. Though the piece speaks to African American experiences, 10 percent of the choristers aren't of that background. One is Temple University grad student Kathy Keefe, who recently arrived in Philadelphia, wanted to sing, and found this project on Google.

"I called them up and they said, 'Yeah, be a part of this!' " she says. "It's really an epic piece. The sheer amount of noise that's going to be made - drums, instruments and soloists - it's going to be amazing."

Tall and statuesque, Lokumbe - born Hannibal Marvin Peterson - has evolved into a public figure reminiscent of Old Testament prophets. His world is a serious place. For example, much of Can You Hear God Crying? was first heard by prison inmates; he forms orchestras behind bars in various cities, most recently in Minneapolis, and used his pieces-in-progress as teaching tools.

And this one has been in progress since 2005. "When the creator first gave it to me, I was lying on my sofa in New Orleans. I started to see these flashes of light. Each time I saw them, the lights would linger," he recalls. "Eventually, the light was low enough for me to see what was happening, and it was people being taken through this doorway."

That became the central idea of the piece: the Door of No Return, a traumatic, genocidal experience through which many cultures unwillingly pass. Lokumbe believes the African American community still experiences an inner ache - some call it "epic memory," not personally experienced but part of the DNA - that must be confronted before people can move on.

"It has to affect the way we live now. How could it not?" he says. "We have to back through that door and heal . . . not pull out a gun and think that'll save us."

Lokumbe's emergence from the jazz world and into concert works coincided with a social conscience born of the racism he experienced growing up in Texas. Prison work is only the latest of his campaigns to change the world. Touring jazz clubs didn't allow that. "I wanted to give people more of my life other than just through music," he said. "Playing with the symphony, I was allowed to go into the communities for months at a time."

He taught at St. Francis de Sales School in West Philadelphia for a year. But his prison work - which often involves raising money for inmates so they can get started after their release - has had such an impact on him that any ensemble he now works with is named the Music Liberation Orchestra. It's listed that way on Friday's program, though no inmates will be playing the concert.

"Music liberated me and continues to liberate me," he said. The behind-bars versions of Music Liberation Orchestra come with specific requirements for membership: Renouncing violence, and keeping a journal "for themselves and for their children."

Personal histories are an obsession with him. At St. Francis de Sales, he taught genealogy, and he cites numerous instances of hearing meaningful details about his own family history that might have been lost when his relatives died.

The reason is one well understood by any imposing man with dreadlocks: In many public places, Lokumbe is automatically regarded with suspicion. "The world is constantly telling you who you are," he says. And to know one's self provides resistance to that.

Certainly, no negative input comes his way in his circle of intimates, who often treat him with a reverence he also resists: "That stuff is embarrassing." Maybe he doesn't take himself all that seriously. When told that his vision in New Orleans also could have described the symptoms of a detaching retina, he collapsed in laughter so intense that no sound came out.

And the huge pieces he writes seem to gain traction casually. The Friday performance, presented by the Kimmel Center and the Arts Sanctuary, was spearheaded by longtime supporter Haas, who saw Lokumbe one day and asked, "What are you working on?" A commission was born.

She believes in him. "I've watched him work in prisons . . . and seen him tap into something with the inmates," she says.

 Though Lokumbe can work quickly - African Portraits was written in three weeks - the new piece took seven years, and the Friday premiere is the third to be scheduled at the Kimmel Center in the last year while he rewrote the end.

One difficulty may be the gulf between the evolution of his music and the nonprofessional church choirs he insists on writing for. While the music calls for professional efficiency, he wants something beyond that. He wants the singers to become the piece.

"There's something about this choir. Did you hear the passages where they really got it?" he said after the rehearsal. "That sonority? That depth?"

Watch a choral rehearsal of "Can You Hear God Crying?" at www.philly.com/cryingEndText