Join GRAMMY award winning singer/songwriter Rosanne Cash and friends for an evening of information, music, shared experience and rallying for change.

A long-time advocate for gun control, Rosanne Cash has been a vocal activist for sensible gun laws for over 20 years. She has written about the issue of gun violence for Rolling Stone, Billboard Magazine and the New York Times and recently called for more artists in country and American roots music to disavow the NRA.

Kurt Andersen is the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of the recent Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, and of the novels True Believers, Heyday, and Turn of the Century. Kurt is also host and co-creator of the Peabody Award-winning Studio 360, the weekly radio show on NPR about arts and culture.

Successful Boston developer and gun owner, John Rosenthal is the co-founder of Stop Handgun Violence, the lead advocate for Massachusetts' effective gun violence prevention laws and initiatives. MA enacted the first in the nation consumer protection manufacturing and marketing standards for firearms, has reduced firearm fatalities by over 40% since 1994 and now has lowest gun death rate in the Nation. The organization has also developed several impactful media and public education campaigns, the centerpiece of which is one of the largest billboards in the nation.

Mark Erelli, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, has won several prestigious awards including the Kerrville New Folk contest and the International Song Contest. His rigorous touring schedule has taken him everywhere from coffeehouses and major folk festival stages to Fenway Park.

The internationally acclaimed Young People’s Chorus of New York City (YPC) provides children of all cultural and economic backgrounds with a unique program of music education and choral performance that seeks to fulfill each child’s potential, while creating a model of artistic excellence and diversity that enriches the community. YPC has been recognized by the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities as “a national model of artistic excellence and diversity” under the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.

Gun violence continues to take a heartbreaking and devastating toll on communities throughout the country. In 2017 alone there were 61,805 incidents of gun violence that resulted in the deaths of 15,636 people and the injury of 31,245 more. According to a February 2018 Quinnipiac University poll, 66% of Americans support stricter gun laws. In spite of these astronomical numbers, our government continues to fail at enacting sweeping legislation to protect the public.

Join us for an evening of UNITY & CHANGE with Rosanne Cash, Kurt Andersen, John Rosenthal, Mark Erelli, and the Young People's Chorus.

Conversations That Matter is a program series at St. Luke's that seeks to strengthen community through respectful listening and dialogue; to build bridges of understanding between people of diverse experiences. We seek to provide a safe space where diverse perspectives will be represented at each conversation.