When John Legend takes the stage at the Muny with his band, the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Symphony Orchestra and a gospel choir on Sept. 7, it’ll be the first time a concert has graced its stage since 1991 when Moody Blues and Kansas performed.
The Muny isn’t new to live music performances. It held its first concert in June 1984 with a performance from Grammy Award-winning singer Al Jarreau. Concerts continued in the offseason until 1991 when leadership no longer saw them as a viable business move for the institution.
But all that changes this week. Following feedback from the community, Muny President and CEO Kwofe Coleman is reintroducing live concerts to the theatre after a 33-year hiatus.
“We needed an iconic, or dare I say, legendary moment for the return,†he says. “John Legend, with the symphony, seemed like a one-of-one kind of experience.â€
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This will be the SLSO’s will first time performing with Legend. Coleman had been searching for new ways to collaborate with the symphony for over a year and partnering on this show seemed like the right opportunity.
Unitey Kull, chief marketing and communications officer for SLSO, says the Muny’s 11,000-seat theatre will serve as one of many home-away-from-homes for the symphony as they await the completion of Powell Hall’s renovation and expansion. The performance falls just a few weeks before the start of SLSO’s 145th season.
“It just seems like a really great fit for us to collaborate and for the Muny to experiment with bringing concerts back,†Kull says.
Legend has performed with symphonies in the past, including the San Francisco Symphony earlier this year. He’s currently on tour and recently released his first children’s album “My Favorite Dream,†featuring 15 songs and lullabies to encourage families to bond through music.
Legend joins a long list of artists like Patti LaBelle, Bob Dylan and Whitney Houston who’ve performed on the Muny stage.
His Muny performance signifies the beginning of a new era of concerts.
“The willingness to really create something that would be special for our community, our audience specifically, was a real impetus for bringing in John Legend,†Coleman says.
Following Legend’s performance, Coleman says there will be more offseason concerts at the Muny. Although he can’t say how many or when they will occur, he and the Muny staff are taking suggestions on who to bring to the stage next.
Coleman says it was tricky producing a concert while wrapping up the theatre season. Preparations for the Legend’s concert were underway at the same time as 2025 season planning and educational programming. But the Muny is used to putting on big productions quickly and having a lot going on at once.
“People come here to experience greatness, see excellence, to lose themselves in a moment or to just see something different,†he says.
As the comeback show approaches, Coleman hopes reintroducing concerts attracts a new audience to the Muny. He also says the return of concerts will maximize the use of the Muny’s facility following its multimillion-dollar renovation in 2018.
And although they’re bringing in fresh programming, the theatre stays true to its age-old traditions, like having 1,500 free seats available at every show.
For the concert though, those seats are handled somewhat differently: They were raffled off weeks before the concert.
Coleman says he remembers sitting in a free seat the first time he saw a performance at the Muny when he was a kid.
That started Coleman on a path that would eventually see him take over from former Muny President and CEO Denny Reagan in 2022.
Coleman has worked at the Muny since 1998. He started as an usher and went on to serve in many roles including house manager, managing director and digital communications manager. Each summer he’d return to his hometown for the season. For Coleman, the Muny is all he knows.
“I’ve been home every summer in ºüÀêÊÓƵ, every summer of my life,†Coleman says. “For the past 26 of them, they’ve been here.â€
He promises the theatre will always remain accessible to the community.
“You change people’s lives for the better, if not even for a day, when you give them access to something that the rest of the universe has told them that they don’t deserve for some reason,†he says.
It’s safe to say that concerts are back at the Muny. However, Coleman is still navigating what that looks like. There are many factors, like scheduling and leaving a positive footprint in Forest Park, to consider. He’s also being mindful of being a good neighbor to the other major institutions that call the park home. But Coleman is confident in what’s to come.
“This place has been special for a long time,†he says. “It’s going to remain special. We’re going to add more to that special sauce, I guess, for lack of a better term. But it’s just the beginning.â€