Stevie Wonder asks Henry Panion III to conduct, arrange orchestras on new 11-city tour

By Shannon Thomason

Producer, composer, arranger and orchestrator Henry Panion III, Ph.D., will join music legend Stevie Wonder on his just-announced 11-city tour. Wonder and Panion have collaborated musically for more than 30 years. Panion will conduct orchestras for shows in each city for the tour. 

A 25-time Grammy winner, Wonder is an Academy Award winner and has been honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, among countless other honors. Panion is a University of Alabama at Birmingham University Professor of Music and director of Music Technology in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Music.

“Stevie shared with me his desire to help spread joy, peace and love during these troubled times, a message he has been about his entire life, and asked me to serve as conductor on this tour,” Panion said.

The tour, titled “Sing Your Song! As We Fix Our Nation’s Broken Heart,” was announced Sept. 19. Wonder will perform the select dates throughout October and Nov. 2, “at the height of a critical election season and a pivotal juncture in American politics and culture, in a call for ‘joy over anger, kindness over recrimination, peace over war,’” according to the announcement. Wonder will also offer a designated number of complimentary tickets “to those in our communities who are already working tirelessly to fix our nation’s broken heart.” 

The shows are produced by Wonder Productions and promoted by AEG Presents in partnership with Free Lunch. The tour will begin Tuesday, Oct. 8, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with stops in Maryland, New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois. Performances in the South include Oct. 17 in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Oct. 19, in Atlanta, Georgia. Tickets are on sale now.

Panion has arranged for Wonder and conducted virtually every major orchestra in the world with him, including the Royal Philharmonic, the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, the Orchestra of Paris, the Melbourne (Australia) Symphony, the Rio de Janeiro Philharmonic and many others. Panion’s first tour with Wonder was as arranger and conductor for the “Natural Wonder” European tour in 1992. The two-CD set “Natural Wonder” features Panion conducting his arrangements of many of Wonder’s award-winning, chart-topping songs with Wonder and the Tokyo Philharmonic. In 1995, Panion directed a 33-piece orchestra for Wonder’s “Charge Against Hunger Natural Wonder” tour, to help raise money for grass-roots organizations that distribute food to the needy.

That tour preceded Wonder’s album “Conversation Peace” for which Panion arranged for orchestra.vThanks to Panion’s connections with Wonder, the Stevie Wonder Music Technology Scholarship at UAB has been awarded to more than 40 students. In 1996, UAB awarded Wonder an honorary doctoral degree.

A three-time Grammy Award winner, Panion’s experiences span the musical spectrum, from gospel and classical to pop, rock, hip-hop, be-bop and everything in between. In addition to Wonder, he has worked with superstars Lionel Richie, Aretha Franklin and Chaka Khan; jazz luminaries Ellis Marsalis, Jonathan Butler and the Lionel Hampton Orchestra; gospel legends the Winans, Kirk Franklin, The Clark Sisters and Yolanda Adams; “American Idol” winners Carrie Underwood, Taylor Hicks and Ruben Studdard; and hip-hop artists Coolio and Nelly. Panion earned two Emmy Awards in 2021 for the PBS documentary “Dreams of Hope,” which also won an unprecedented 13 Telly Awards. He was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 2023.

Alabama audiences can see Panion at UAB’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center on Nov. 17, as he reprises the successful presentation of “A Gospel Symphony Celebration,” on the heels of sold-out shows with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall and the National Symphony Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. For “A Gospel Symphony Celebration,” Panion will lead the Alabama Symphony Orchestra and gospel legend Tramaine Hawkins with the combined gospel choirs of Miles College and UAB. Tickets are $28, $36, $58 and $74, with a limited supply of $10 student tickets with valid ID. Purchase tickets at AlysStephens.org.