Malcolm-Jamal Warner, “The Cosby Show” actor, poet and musician who died Sunday in an accidental drowning on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, headlined Minnesota Orchestra’s first Juneteenth concert in 2023.
The Emmy nominee and Grammy winner was 54.
Warner played son Theo Huxtable on “Cosby” from 1984-92, growing up before Americans’ eyes and earning an Emmy nod for supporting actor in a comedy in 1986. He won a Grammy in 2015 for traditional R&B for “Jesus Children,” a collaboration with Robert Glasper Experiment and Lalah Hathaway that was about the Sandy Hook Elementary School children who were killed in a shooting.
Born in Jersey City, N.J., and named after Malcolm X and jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal, Warner was nominated in 2023 for a spoken word Grammy for his album “Hiding in Plain View.”
For the Juneteenth concert, Warner shared an original poem, “Art in Motion,” which was packed with dense rhymes and ingenious wordplay.
“We wear this oppressive air with such an impressive flair, only the few astute truly fascinated by the truth dare view our struggle to survive as art in motion,” he read. “For we are abstract, admired for how we create culture from scratch with scraps.”
Warner’s performance was the centerpiece of the concert conducted by André Raphel and featuring William Grant Still’s “Afro-American Symphony.”
Grant Meachum, who programmed the show, said that Warner’s headlining presence “lifted an already great evening into one of my most memorable concerts at Orchestra Hall.”
