Join us for an afternoon of music and history in support of the Underground Railroad Education Center
Arias in the Afternoon
Lifting Every Voice
Witness the beauty of Handel’s Messiah with a performance by Daniel Pascoe Aguilar alongside the Smithsonian’s Voices and Votes exhibit, as we confront our complex history and continue the fight for education and truth.
December 14, 2025
1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
New York State Museum
4th Floor Terrace
Stand with us. Leave your mark.
Power the future.
The Underground Railroad Education Center exists to tell the whole story—celebrating courage, exposing injustice, and passing forward the legacy of resistance. We believe history must be seen, heard, and felt to fully inform an intentional future committed to justice.
Your support of Arias in the Afternoon will help us take significant steps toward realizing our dream of a permanent Interpretive Center where young people can stand tall as they discover the courage of those who came before them, and where our community can gather to celebrate progress and plan for a more equitable tomorrow.
A NOTE ON HANDEL
Arias in the Afternoon: Lifting Every Voice draws its music from the works of George Frideric Handel, celebrated for its beauty, complexity, and emotional power. But Handel’s legacy is not unblemished. Historical records show he held financial investments in the Royal African Company, a major player in the transatlantic slave trade. The very wealth that supported his compositions was, in part, built on the trafficking and suffering of enslaved Africans.
As we gather to listen to his music in this space, we do so with full awareness of these contradictions. The Underground Railroad Education Center is committed to telling the whole story – one that includes the roots of injustice alongside the stories of resistance, survival, and hope.
This evening, we invite you to hold these truths together: the brilliance of the music, and the reality of its origin. We honor not just the notes on the page, but the voices of those who were silenced, and those who fought to be heard.
In their memory – and in service of their legacy – we continue the work of education, truth-telling, and justice.
