(NEWARK, NJ) -- Newark, get ready for the “Festival of Praise,” a gospel extravaganza with GRAMMY® Award winners and gospel superstars Fred Hammond, Israel Houghton,and Bishop Hezekiah Walker. These gospel icons take to the stage in person on Friday, April 1, 2022, at Newark Symphony Hall in Newark, New Jersey.

Experience the musical artistry of Gospel icon Fred Hammond, Christian singer and worship warrior Israel Houghton (Israel & New Breed), and hip-hop pastor Bishop Hezekiah Walker as audiences’ worship in song and praise. This event is presented in collaboration with NJPAC Productions.

Tickets for Festival of Praise with Fred Hammond, Israel Houghton, and Hezekiah Walker go On-Sale Friday, February 18 at 12:00pm at Ticketmaster.com or can be purchased in person at Newark Symphony Hall Box Office located at 1020 Broad Street in Newark, New Jersey or by calling 973.643.4550. 

Singer, songwriter, musician, producer, arranger, play writer, and film producer/Director and multimedia entertainment Fred Hammond has been a leading pioneer of Gospel music since 1985. As a progenitor of ‘Urban Praise & Worship’, Hammond has influenced Pop superstars such as Justin Bieber, Chance the Rapper, Jamie Foxx, and more. Foxx explained in an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live how Hammond’s “No Weapon” had a profound impact on Quentin Tarantino and the cast of D’jango during the shooting of some of the film’s more intense scenes. Hammond named as Essence Magazine’s list of the 50 Greatest Males Singers of All Time, Fred Hammond has topped Billboard charts, sold millions of records, multi Grammy /Stellar /BET / N.A.A.C.P winner, and collaborated with Snoop Dogg and Kayne West. Hammond was also the founding member of seminal Gospel group Commissioned, Radical for Christ, Motor City Mass, and United Tenors.

Israel Houghton is a six-time GRAMMY®-winning gospel singer-songwriter, band leader, and innovator whose 20-year career with the musical collective NewBreed has taken him around the world, growing and adapting in surprising ways over a very transformative stretch of music and cultural history. Most recently, as the isolation and danger of a global pandemic rocked the music industry, Houghton, renowned for his live performance and live albums, became an early champion of the livestream format by sharing a regular livestream combining music and worship services for a stay-at-home audience alongside his wife Adrienne, co-host of The Real and his frequent musical collaborator. Now, the upcoming live album Project LA: Alive in Los Angeles immortalizes the stay-at-home NewBreed experience, breathing electricity into the intimate #WorshipWednesdays series with a communal vibe that blurs the lines between band, family, and audience.

Bishop Hezekiah Xzavier Walker, Jr. is a Grammy Award-winning gospel music artist, founder and leader of the Love Fellowship Choir (LFC), and Pastor and Bishop of the Love Fellowship Tabernacle.  For more than thirty years, Stellar and GRAMMY® Award winner, Hezekiah Walker, has a track record of delivering music that serves as anthems of hope and inspiration for the church. His catalog of songs has garnered national and international acclaim. Known as "the hip-hop pastor," Hezekiah Walker has brought a lot of young people to gospel and choir music,and has shown that he has no problem using modern vernacular and recording techniques to expand his fan and worship base. A New York native, Walker grew up in the Fort Greene housing projects of Brooklyn. He formed his first gospel group, the Love Fellowship Crusade Choir, when he was in his twenties and serving as a Pentecostal minister.

Newark Symphony Hall is located at 1020 Broad Street in Newark, New Jersey. Born as the Salaam Temple in 1925, Newark Symphony Hall has been the home of almost a century of arts and culture in what is now New Jersey’s oldest and largest arts and entertainment venue. Shortly after our introduction into Newark’s cultural nightlife, the Salaam Temple – quickly nicknamed “The Mosque” by visitors who crossed our threshold – began to draw diverse audiences and became the epicenter of Brick City’s live entertainment scene.

The invention of talking pictures, vaudeville acts and symphony orchestras made way to include a robust cinema where audiences could enjoy the grandeur of the latest film in style. During the Great Depression, we survived the hardship of the economic downturn with new management determined to see the Mosque bolster the city’s spirit and embody her resilience. The Griffith Music Foundation, helmed by Lena Donaldson Griffith, owner of the Griffith Piano Company, recognized the power of the arts to foster our community and turned the Mosque into the powerhouse artists and entertainers of all backgrounds were eager to add to their tours.