The idea came together over dinner.
How can we commemorate the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans’ resilience?
Ella Grace Francis, a 16-year-old singer and songwriter from Destrehan, sat with her manager, Sir Billy Dorsey Jr., and fellow St. Charles Parish resident, Dwayne LaGrange, at a restaurant in New Orleans.
“We had this idea of a concert, but we didn’t really know where it was going to go,” Francis said. “We knew that we wanted it to be mostly New Orleans artists in the concert. And so, we started calling managers, and things just kind of came together.”
Francis, whose first album, “Waves,” debuted at No. 1 on the Children’s Charts on iTunes in May will perform at the Waves of Grace: Remembering Katrina concert Friday, Aug. 29 at 7 p.m. at the Orpheum Theater in New Orleans. She will perform alongside New Orleans musicians Irma Thomas, Kermit Ruffins, Amanda Shaw, Sarah Jan McMahon, Rockin’ Dopsie Jr. and the Zydeco Twisters.
Tickets, which start at $59, are available through Tickemaster, and 100 percent of the proceeds will be donated to several charities across the city, including Next Generation Ministries, First Responder’s Children’s Foundation, United Cajun Navy and Louisiana Children’s Medical Center.
The concert will pay tribute to the lives lost in the storm and recognize the recovery efforts of residents and responders. The event will also include testimonies from survivors, including those who were children at the time of the storm. The first annual Waves of Service Award will be given during the concert.
Dorsey, a three-time Grammy-winning producer, said the goal of the concert is to honor the people that helped to restore New Orleans and the neighboring communities following the storm.
“A lot of them were not properly recognized for what they did,” Dorsey said. “People made sacrifices and lost things that they can’t replace. You know, we were told about one doctor who was pregnant [at the time of the storm] and lost her baby while caring for other families and their babies.”
Hurricane Katrina hit four years before Francis was born, but she grew up hearing stories from friends and family about the chaos and devastation the storm caused.
“When I drive with my mom in the city, she’ll point out places that never came back after Katrina,” Francis said. “You just see the missing pieces of culture, of someone’s business, or home that never returned. And my parents have told me stories. I have adult friends who have experienced it. I mean, everybody suffered.”
But Francis wants the concert to also highlight the city’s impressive resilience.
“I hope that we do the job of celebrating how far we’ve come,” she said. “We are going to talk about the devastating disaster that Katrina was and recognize that. But I hope this is also a way for people to celebrate the city and to celebrate our culture.”
The concert’s title – Waves of Grace – was inspired by Francis’ album, “Waves,” which is about waves of grief and grace. Francis wrote the album after she lost both of her grandmothers in the same year. She wanted others to know they were not alone in their grief and that there was hope, too.
Franics is partnered with the grief organization, Coalition to Support Grieving Students, to raise money during the concert for grief organizations throughout the country.
Dorsey said people will have access to the concert via livestream and can donate directly to the youth grief organizations in their area through unique links.
“So, this isn’t just blessing people in New Orleans with what [Francis] is doing,” Dorsey said. “She’s also going to bring in money for grief organizations that help kids and families all across the country while they’re watching her, and these great legendary New Orleans artists, perform.”
Dorsey first met Francis when she was 14 years old, and even then, he was struck by her clarity of vision. The manager and singer have connected not only over music, but over God and faith. It is the guiding principle for them both.
“I believe there are certain artists that are chosen by God to impact their generation,” Dorsey said. “And that is Ella Grace. She has one of the most amazing voices that I’ve heard, and I work with some of the biggest names in music. I get chills listening to her. She is phenomenally talented, and the thing that people connect with is her vision. It’s exciting.”
The Remembering Katrina concert is the second stop for Francis’ “Waves of Grace” tour. She recently performed in Chicago alongside the Grammy-winning Soul Choir of Chicago, led by Walt Whitman. The tour will reach 11 more cities though the end of the year, with stops in Houston and Atlanta and other places with Grammy chapters. Her and her team are making a push for Grammy recognition for Francis’ album.
Her tour will also include stops at children’s hospitals and grief organizations.
“I didn’t expect any of this,” Francis said. “The goal was to get the album to chart in six weeks – it was No. 1 in less than 24 hours. So, our plans were thrown out the window at that point, and now we’re doing a national tour.”
But despite what happens next, Francis knows her music will be guided by purpose.
“I know that I always want my music to have meaning, to resonate with people and impact people and have substance,” she said.
