Last Updated on: 26th June 2023, 10:46 pm
Like the holiday itself, the National Memorial Day concert 2021 must have changed over time, but the basic traditions remain.
The event was converted from live production to a virtual special last year due to the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The concert will be virtual again for 2021 as PBS will broadcast the 32nd annual Sunday (8 p.m. on GBH Channel 2).
Joe Mantegna and Gary Sinise are reuniting as longtime presenters of the program, presenting new performances that have been recorded in a variety of locations … including Washington, D.C., as usual for the show.
“We are taking advantage of the situation in the sense that we cannot do the normal thing to be on the west lawn of the United States Capitol, where 100,000 people are watching us,” said a former student of “Criminal Minds”, winner of a Tony Mantegna Award.
“We did different things creatively, and Gary and I will be back in Los Angeles together. I thought the show went really well last year and this could be even better as we had the experience of doing it that way.
Emmy winner Sinise agrees, adding that production company Capital Concerts “always does a great job and I’m proud to be a part of it.”
The National Memorial Day concert 2021 helps make a connection. By sharing these stories of service and sacrifice, you will give the nation an opportunity to honor the heroes of yesterday and today for their service in our country and to better understand the cost of freedom and why. Our men and women in service have been and are vital to maintaining freedom.
Topics for this year’s 90-minute offering include nurses and other women who served in the Vietnam War, the 70th anniversary of the Korean War, and the 20th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks.
Planned talents include music stars Gladys Knight, Vince Gill, Sara Bareilles, Alan Jackson, Mickey Guyton, Denyce Graves, and the Four Tops; Actors Joe Morton, Mary McCormack, Kathy Bates, Steve Buscemi, Bailee Madison, and Brian’Arcy James; and the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jack Everly. Retired General Colin L. Powell will also appear regularly.
“Steve Buscemi was with me the first year I did the show in 2002,” noted Mantegna.
“So it will be good to see him again. It’s wonderful programming. The event precedes the 10th anniversary of the Gary Sinise Charitable Foundation,” which Sinise says, honors our lawyers, our veterans, our first responders, their families, and those in need.
2020 will long be remembered as a year of great hardship with the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic difficulties that followed.
It will remind us of pain and loss, but also of our collective strength and the fighting spirit of our first responders.