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INTRODUCTION
Two quite different kinds of sacred music have sprung from
the African-American experience. One is gospel music; the other
is the spiritual. While gospel music and spirituals share many
things, and while the distinctions between them are easily and
often blurred, they stem from different eras and situations and
are in no way identical.
The spiritual is a product of three central experiences. First
came the brutal Middle Passage on ships between western Africa
and the auction block (an experience which created “the moan”).
Following this were the practices of slavery on plantations in
the southern United States. Last was the conversion of the slave
population to Christianity. Dena Epstein’s groundbreaking book
Sinful Tunes and Spirituals brilliantly chronicles this
historical development, and I heartily recommend it to the
curious among you.
Musically, the spiritual is low-tech. Slaves were mostly
prohibited from playing instruments. They weren’t supposed to
sing in a group. Slaveholders and overseers considered such an
assembly to be potentially subversive. The enterprising slaves
would sing anyway, often in the woods, turning a huge washtub
upside down to deflect their voices from reaching the master’s
ears.
The spiritual, then, was a rural phenomenon, created by
people with precious few material resources, making music under
horrible circumstances. The sheer will to live, and to
communicate in song, somehow triumphed for the most part over
despair. We have no authors or composers to credit for this
corpus of work. Even though slaveholders finally decided (around
1800) that slaves were worth evangelizing, the slaves’ music
held no interest or appeal for the more educated owners. The
spirituals’ tunes and styles evolved in oral tradition, before
phonographs or ethnomusicologists were there to capture any of
them; one wonders how many spirituals are lost to us forever.
Gospel music, by contrast, comes from the urban experience of
African Americans following the Great Migration of 1890-1920.
Northern cities needed labor for factories, and the Black
population in the South needed work. Yet this migration created
problems in northern urban churches on Sunday morning. The “old
settlers” who liked Mozart and formal services found themselves
rubbing elbows with new arrivals, who craved the ecstatic
release of the ring shout and “storefront” worship. The genius
of gospel music was to please both sets of people, and in the
1930s in Chicago, Thomas A. Dorsey did just that.
I believe that the effect of a spiritual is diluted, if not
ruined, by adding instruments. Why all this fuss for fidelity?
We are careful musicians; we’re bringing our care to this
repertoire as we would with a Paul Crabtree sonnet or a world
premiere by Chen Yi. Trevor Mitchell talks with us frequently in
rehearsal about approaching spirituals in the same thoughtful
way that one would approach Baroque music. There are details of
dialect and style to observe, voicings and gesture to master. I
like to think that the results are well worth the effort.
The spiritual deserves our best intellectual energies as well
as our musical ones. We are fortunate that many scholars and
singers, both within and outside the African-American community,
continue to preserve and uphold this great musical legacy. I am
grateful to the arrangers, living and departed, who have made
their music available to us so that we might share it with you.
We may affirm once again the spiritual’s wondrous contribution
to our souls and hearts as well as to our ears. Thank you kindly
for coming to hear us.
—Jonathan Miller, Founder and
Artistic Director
NOTES ON THE MUSIC AND THE COMPOSERS
arr. Jester Hairston: Hold On!
Jester Hairston was born in Belews Creek, North Carolina, in
1902. Jester Hairston's body of work is an institution in the
choral and a cappella worlds. He wrote and arranged more than
300 spirituals, and generations of choral singers have grown up
on his works. While singing in Los Angeles with the Hall Johnson
Choir, Jester met Russian film composer Dimitri Tiomkin, and a
30-year collaboration was begun. Hairston arranged the music for
every one of Tiomkin's films, including the Academy Award winner
Lost Horizon. As an actor, he was well known for his
roles in the radio and TV show "Amos and Andy," in which he
played Leroy and Henry Van Porter, and his role as Deacon Rolly
Forbes in the TV show "Amen." He also conducted the first
integrated choir in Hollywood. Even into his 90s, he continued
to tour the world conducting choirs and acting as a goodwill
ambassador for the U.S. State Department. Jester Hairston died
in January 2000.
Despite this remarkable crossover career, Hairston remained
faithful to the traditions of spirituals which inform his
arrangements. “Hold On!” sets a work song, which slaves would
sing at the end of the work day to inspire them to pick their
required allotment of cotton or other crops. The driving rhythm
gives encouragement to the body as well as the soul.
arr. John Stafford II: Deep River
John Stafford II (b. 1978) is originally from Danville,
Illinois. He is currently appointed at Millikin University in
Decatur, teaching music theory, composition, and vocal jazz. His
music has been performed throughout North America and Europe. He
has earned commissions from the Instituto Cultural Dominico-Americano
in the Dominican Republic, the New York Treble Singers, the
Prairieland Voices Choral Ensemble, and Millikin University. He
has also received recognition from other organizations such as
ASCAP, the North American Music Festival at Lynn University, and
Primavera En La Habana 2004 (Spring in Havana 2004)
International Electroacoustic Music Festival in Havana, Cuba. In
addition, his music has been performed by such artists as Velvet
Brown, the Gregg Smith Singers, and the University of Northern
Colorado Women’s Glee Club. Stafford has received degrees from
Millikin University (B.M.) and Bowling Green State University (M.M.).
Stafford’s Deep River is harmonically lush, rich in texture
and contrast. The extremely low bass solo gives the song an
unusually strong sense of place, literally giving the song a
deep river of sound. The tune migrates somewhat to other voice
parts, including a majestic move to the tenor line at the return
of the opening material. The sopranos’ long held note at the end
serves as an uplifted counterpart to the opening solo—signaling,
perhaps, that the journey over Jordan has been made, or at least
that the promised land is in sight.
arr. Lela Anderson: Great Camp Meeting
Lela Anderson, a native of Houston, was first introduced to
music through her parents Archie and Florence Anderson. She
received her degrees in music education from Prairie View A & M
University, with further study done at North Texas State
University and the University of Houston. A charter member of
the Houston Ebony Opera Guild , Anderson has performed in
numerous choral organizations, including the Houston Grand Opera
Chorus and the Houston Symphony Chorus. During her 28 years as
an educator, she taught music in all levels of public school,
and on the collegiate level. She has worked as a director and
clinician in numerous churches in Texas, and performed around
the United States, as well as on radio and television. Her
choral works have enjoyed international attention through
performances of school, church, collegiate and professional
choirs, including the Larry Parsons Chorale, the Choral Arts
Society of Washington D.C., the National Baptist Convention, and
Barbara Tucker and A Chosen Few. She has been honored by
Billboard Magazine and ASCAP.
Anderson’s music is unusually well crafted. Her work strikes
a superb balance between the spirit of the original tune and
finding a slightly updated harmonic garment for it to wear.
Great Camp Meeting features a driving rhythm with a “vamp”
section borrowed from gospel styles. Fans of Chicago a
cappella’s spirituals CD (Go Down, Moses) will
recognize in this piece a minor-keyed version of the tune from
“Walk togedder, childron.”
arr. Lela Anderson: Give me Jesus
It was with this piece that Lela Anderson first came to the
attention of Chicago a cappella. Her setting of Give me
Jesus goes one step further than Great Camp Meeting in the
direction of complex harmonies, with particularly evocative
word-painting during the verses. The song’s dramatic climax
frames death not as a dull event to which one should be
resigned, but rather a reunion with “my sweet Jesus.”
arr. Howard Helvey: Ezekiel Saw De Wheel
In addition to serving as Organist/Choirmaster of Calvary
Episcopal Church in Cincinnati, Howard Helvey maintains a
national and international presence as a concert pianist,
conductor, composer, arranger and speaker. Known particularly
for his published choral music, Mr. Helvey has had his work
featured on various recordings, national network and PBS
television broadcasts, in such distinguished concert venues as
New York's Carnegie Hall, the National Cathedral in Washington,
D.C., and numerous locations throughout Europe and Asia. Drawn
particularly to folk-based melodies and ancient hymn tunes, Mr.
Helvey often incorporates them into his own writing. Besides
receiving commissions from numerous church and university
choirs, Mr. Helvey has recently completed projects for the
renowned Turtle Creek Chorale of Dallas and for the Wisconsin
Chamber Choir. In 2002, he received a John Ness Beck Foundation
Award for his distinguished contribution to sacred choral music.
There are traditional voicings in spirituals, just as there
are in gospel music. These voicings were captured on paper
initially by the Fisk Jubilee Singers (in the 1870s) and even
more convincingly by Nathaniel Dett in Religious Folk-Songs
of the Negro (roughly a generation later). Howard Helvey
remains faithful to these voicings in his setting of Ezekiel,
whose words recall the images of the prophet’s life in the Old
Testament. The text also follows typical structure, with a pair
of rhyming verse lines each followed by the refrain, “Way in de
middle of de air.”
arr. Brazeal Dennard: Hush! Somebody’s Calling My Name
Throughout his career, Brazeal Dennard has served in many
roles, such as guest conductor, clinician, lecturer, and church
choirmaster. His numerous professional affiliations include the
National Endowment of the Arts, the Department of Cultural
Affairs for the city of Detroit, former trustee and member of
the Advisory Committee of the Detroit Community Music School,
former Chairman of the Music Advisory Committee for the Michigan
Council for the Arts, and President of the National Association
of Negro Musicians, Inc. Brazeal was invited by the White House
to become a member of a special committee to present White House
Fellowships to highly motivated young Americans. He is perhaps
best known for his work with the Brazeal Dennard Chorale
(founded in 1972), a group of highly trained singers dedicated
to developing the choral art to its highest professional level.
The Chorale developed The Brazeal Dennard Community Chorus in
1985 as a community outreach program. Brazeal Dennard is retired
supervisor of music for the Detroit Public Schools and serves as
adjunct faculty at Wayne State University.
Hush! Somebody’s Calling My Name is a perennial
favorite of Chicago a cappella audiences. The simple
musical materials and poetry of this song take on remarkable
life in Dennard’s masterful hands. The melody is simply stated,
plainly arranged, and powerfully marked for dynamics and
articulation. While the text provides an unusually strong image
of death at the end, “creepin’ in my room,” yet there is no
maudlin sentimentality created here, but rather merely a
statement of fact, followed by the now-familiar chorus.
Rosephanye Powell: The Word Was God
Dr. Rosephanye Powell serves as Associate Professor of Voice
at Auburn University (Auburn, Alabama). Prior to her appointment
at Auburn University, Dr. Powell served as an Associate
Professor of Music and Chair of the music department at
Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas. Dr. Powell
began her tenure at Philander Smith College in 1993, after
receiving the Doctor of Music in vocal performance at The
Florida State University. She earned the Master of Music degree
in vocal performance and pedagogy from Westminster Choir College
and the Bachelor of Music Education degree from Alabama State
University.
The Word Was God and its composer have become widely
popular. Powell takes as her simple, powerful text the first
three verses of the Gospel of John. The piece builds momentum
steadily with a distinctive rhythmic figure, presented almost
relentlessly but with effective pauses. This work is not
technically a spiritual in the strictest sense, since its words
were not written by slaves nor passed down through oral
tradition. However, the music is so fully imbued with the
idiomatic style of the spiritual, so reminiscent in gesture of
works like Great Camp Meeting, and so evocative of the
work of great composers and arrangers like Lena McLin, that it
has found a place as a remarkable contemporary expression of the
genre.
arr. Wayland Rogers: In This Land
Wayland Rogers is a conductor, singer and voice teacher as
well as a composer. His more than one hundred compositions,
published by Boosey and Hawkes and Alliance Music Publications,
are heard around the world in concert halls, schools, churches
and synagogues. Several have won such awards as The Roger Wagner
Center Choral Competition, The Chautauqua Chamber Singers Award,
The Illinois ACDA Choral Composition Competition, and The
Vincent B. Silliman Anthem Award. He conducts choruses and
teaches singing at Loyola University/Chicago and at North Park
University. As a lyric baritone, he specializes in the French
and German concert song repertoire. He received a Grammy
nomination for his recording with Chicago Symphony Winds of
Mozart. His singing students regularly perform in opera,
concert, television and musical theater in America and abroad.
Wayland Rogers writes with clear and effective drive and
voicings for In this Land. Rogers’s setting builds
momentum gradually, never getting overly extroverted. The tune
comes from John W. Work’s 1960 book, American Negro Songs and
Spirituals. The text shares some elements with Hairston’s
In Dat Great Gittin’ Up Mornin’. However, the verses here
seem more concerned with the welfare of the local community of
believers, and with their occasional foibles, than with the
breathless excitement of going to heaven. The composer writes
that this song “is a compassionate call for social justice but
with a tinge of anger in two of its verses at those who would
stand in the way of the common good.”
arr. Paul Carey: Hear de lambs a-cryin’
Paul Carey studied composition with Alfred Blatter, Herbert
Bruen, Ben Johnston, and Eugene Kurtz. Mr. Carey's graduate
studies were at Yale University, where he studied with David
Mott. He also participated in extensive recording projects with
conductor Arthur Weisberg for summer programs in New York City's
Central Park. A gifted accompanist, Mr. Carey has worked with
such singers as soprano Erie Mills, tenor Jerry Hadley, bass
Eric Halfvarson, and baritone Sherrill Milnes. Mr. Carey founded
Vox Caelestis, a professional women’s chorus, in 2000, and
directed it for five years, creating many works for that
ensemble. His choral music has gained attention nationwide from
choruses of distinction. A Cradle Song was a featured
composition at the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA)
convention in February 2004. Esta Tarde, mi bien (This Evening,
my love) was the winner of the Cambridge Madrigal Singers
International Composition Competition and was premiered at the
McDowell Colony and also in Boston in May 2004. During the
summers of 2002-04, Mr. Carey was invited to participate in the
Oxford University Press Summer Institute at Lehigh University,
working with fellow Oxford composers Libby Larsen, Bob Chilcott,
and Steven Sametz, as well as conductor Nicholas Cleobury and
The Princeton Singers to create new repertoire. He was also
invited by legendary conductor Gregg Smith in the summer of 2003
to participate in the Adirondack Festival of American Music with
the Gregg Smith Singers. Mr. Carey was also the recipient of an
ASCAP special award in 2004.
Hear de lambs a-cryin’ is in a sense a companion piece to
In
This Land. Both works put the attention on the believers who are
petitioning God for favor. They are both on the contemplative
side, each with strong imagery to make the song easy to remember
and the message easy to absorb. Hear de lambs a-cryin’ features
call-and-response style with a constant request to “feed-a my
sheep.” The text also shares material with the well-known work
by Dett, Listen to the Lambs.
arr. Rollo A. Dilworth: Since I Laid My Burdens Down
Rollo A. Dilworth is Associate Professor of Music and
Director of Choral Activities and Music Education at the North
Park University School of Music in Chicago, Illinois. He
received his Doctor of Music degree in conducting at
Northwestern University, where he studied conducting and
composition with Robert A. Harris. Dilworth’s choral
compositions are a part of the Henry Leck Creating Artistry
Choral Series with Hal Leonard Corporation and Colla Voce Music
Company. Dilworth is a contributing author for the Essential
Elements for Choir and the Experiencing Choral Music textbook
series. An active and respected conductor, composer, educator,
and clinician, with engagements literally around the world,
Dilworth has taught choral music at the elementary, secondary,
and university levels. He currently serves on the ACDA Central
Division Board of Directors as the Repertoire and Standards
Chair for Multicultural and Ethnic music.
This song is also well known in church-hymn settings as
“Glory, Glory, Hallelujah,” one of the most joyous of all
spirituals. Dilworth’s published arrangement has optional piano
and is effective in a cappella performance as well. Since I Laid
My Burdens Down borrows heavily from gospel voicings to give a
bluesy opening in the men’s voices, filled with seventh chords,
before the women enter with the familiar tune. Dilworth even
takes care to write specific note-bendings into the score.
Following a small joke (which we won’t give away here), Dilworth
goes into full-blown shout-style with a rousing finish.
arr. Adolphus Hailstork: Motherless Child
Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork began his musical studies with
piano lessons as a child. He studied at Howard University and
Manhattan School of Music (M.Mus. in Composition, 1966),
spending the summer of 1963 at the American Institute at
Fontainebleau, France, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger.
After service in the U.S. Armed Forces in Germany (1966-1968),
he returned to the United States and pursued his doctorate
degree at Michigan State University in Lansing (Ph.D., 1971).
His career as a teacher includes professorships at Norfolk State
University in Virginia (1977-2000) and Old Dominion University,
both in Norfolk, Virginia (2000-present), where he is Eminent
Scholar and Professor of Music. Dr. Hailstork writes in a
variety of forms and styles. Mourn Not the Dead received the
1971 Ernest Bloch Award for choral composition. In 1990, a
consortium of five orchestras commissioned a piano concerto,
which was premiered by Leon Bates in 1992. Other significant
performances by major orchestras (Philadelphia, Chicago and New
York) have been led by leading conductors such as Lorin Maazel,
Daniel Barenboim and Kurt Masur. In 1999, the composer’s second
symphony (commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra), and
his second opera, Joshua’s Boots (commissioned by the Opera
Theatre of St. Louis and the Kansas City Lyric Opera), were
premiered. In 2002, James Conlon conducted Hailstork’s oratorio
Done Made My Vow at the renowned Cincinnati May Festival. In
1992, Dr. Hailstork was proclaimed a Cultural Laureate of the
State of Virginia.
Hailstork’s classical training and his extraordinary feel for
harmony and supple counterpoint come to the forefront in
Motherless Child, which he considers to be one of his choral
masterworks. The piece is a remarkable blending of a traditional
spiritual tune, a richly layered texture to support the soloist,
pleasant harmonic surprises, and thoughtful moments of contrast
in the choir.
arr. Jester Hairston: In Dat Great Gittin’ Up Mornin’
This rousing song tells the story of Judgment Day, when
Gabriel will blow his trumpet and the saved will go up and say
“fare ye well!”
INTERMISSION
arr. William Dawson: There Is A Balm in Gilead
William Levi Dawson (1899-1990) was a composer, choir
director and professor.
A graduate of the Horner Institute of Fine Arts, Dawson later
studied at Chicago Musical College with professor Felix Borowski,
and then at the American Conservatory of Music. His teaching
career featured a 25-year tenure with the Tuskegee Institute,
starting in 1931. During this period, it was he who appointed a
large number of faculty members that later became well known for
their work in the field. Additionally, Dawson also developed the
Tuskegee Institute Choir into an internationally renowned
ensemble; they were invited to sing at New York City's Radio
City Music Hall in 1932 for a week of six daily performances.
Dawson began composing at a young age. His best known works are
arrangements and variations on spirituals; his Negro Folk
Symphony of 1934 garnered a great deal of attention at its world
premiere, under the direction of Leopold Stokowski with the
Philadelphia Orchestra. The symphony was later revised in 1952
with greater African rhythms inspired by the composer’s trip to
West Africa. Widely performed, his most popular spirituals
include Jesus Walked the Lonesome Valley, Talk about a Child
That Do Love Jesus and King Jesus Is a-Listening. His
arrangements are at times unusually adventuresome, especially
for the time in which he was writing them.
Balm in Gilead is an expression of tremendous comfort, giving
a sense of remarkable repose and hope in the face of suffering.
Dawson’s setting becomes gradually more active in the choral
part, while always giving pride of place to the magnificent
melody.
arr. John Stafford II: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
This piece is from the same collection as Deep River, and
Stafford here rocks the house with infectious backup rhythms and
gestures reminiscent of Take 6.
arr. Robert L. Morris: This Little Light of Mine!
Robert Morris holds degrees from DePaul University, Indiana
University and the University of Iowa. He created
awarding-winning choirs while teaching at Hampton University,
Winston-Salem State University, Jackson State University and
Macalester College. Morris is widely known for his knowledge of
classical black choral music literature and performance
practices and has made presentations for Chorus America, and in
Poland, Germany, Australia, and Brazil. He became the music
director and resource person for a small group of scholars who
traveled to Cuba to share information by means of an on-going
discussion of Culture as Social Transformation. As a composer,
Morris has created original works and arranged music that has
been performed and recorded by The Dale Warland Singers,
VocalEssence, Albert McNeil’s Los Angeles Jubilee Singers, The
Moses Hogan Singers and Chorale, The Brazeal Dennard Chorale and
the Nathaniel Dett Chorale, and, in 2004, by the International
Symposium of Choral Music’s (ISCM) Youth Chorale in Korea.
Morris is one of the few composers chosen by the American
Composers Forum to be a Faith Partner. He serves both a Catholic
and a Jewish congregation in St. Paul, MN as composer-in-
residence. Dr. Morris is also founder and artistic director of
the Leigh Morris Chorale, which specializes in performance and
education about the music of black composers and performance
traditions. The Leigh Morris Chorale Series is published by
Alliance Music, with several other publishing houses carrying
Dr. Morris’s compositions.
This Little Light of Mine! is a splendid example of what Dr.
Morris calls an “urban spiritual.” This hybrid of styles fuses
the traditional language of the spiritual with a sophisticated,
pianistic, blues-influenced polish. Morris’s experience
arranging for Duke Ellington is fully in evidence here, with
voicings and rubato at least as evident of big-band string
sections as they are of a cappella congregational singing.
arr. Joseph Jennings: Medley: Where the Sun Will Never Go
Down
One of the world’s most acclaimed and decorated
vocal-ensemble directors, Joseph Jennings joined Chanticleer as
a countertenor in 1983, and shortly thereafter assumed his
current title of Music Director. Under his direction,
Chanticleer has released 25 critically acclaimed recordings
(works ranging from Gregorian chant to Renaissance masterworks
to jazz), including the Grammy Award-winning Colors of Love and
Lamentations and Praises, and has performed at many of the
world’s most prestigious festivals and concert halls. In
addition to being Music Director of Chanticleer, Mr. Jennings
also leads the Golden Gate Men's Chorus. His compositions and
arrangements are published by Oxford University Press, Hinshaw
Music, and Yelton Rhodes Music.
This medley was originally written for Chanticleer’s album of
the same name, recorded shortly after Jennings joined
Chanticleer. The tunes included here are Where The Sun Will
Never Go Down, Ain’t-a That Good News, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,
Over Yonder, and I Got Shoes. The final section builds to an
ecstatic release with the ring-shout qualities of the very best
up-tempo spirituals.
* * * * * * *
Except for composer biographies and unless
otherwise attributed, all program notes provided here are
copyright © 2006 Jonathan M. Miller and may not be reproduced in
any form whatsoever without express permission. |
