MasterWorks Chorale - Spirituals & Gospel Songs

Spirituals and Gospel Songs

6 November 2005
United Methodist Church, Skaneateles, New York

Maureen McCauley Conductor

Program

*Ain'-a That Good News*	W. Dawson
*Precious Lord, Take My Hand*	arr. R. Ringwald

*Ain't Got Time to Die*	H. Johnson
*He Reigneth Over Me*	O. Wells
*I Bowed My Knees and Cried, Holy*	arr. L. Goss
Fern Pridgen
Christ's Messengers

*I'm Available to You*
*INTERMISSION*
*Swing Low, Sweet Chariot*	arr. Adelmann
*There is a Balm in Gilead*	W. Dawson
*Lay Yo' Head in de Winduh, Jesus*	arr. J. Hairston

*Go Down Moses*	arr. J. R. Johnson
*Deep River*	arr. J. R. Johnson
Michael Foster

*Hold On!*	arr. J. Hairston
*I Hear a Voice A-Prayin'*	H. Bright
*Ezekiel Saw de Wheel*	arr. W. Dawson
*Amazing Grace*	arr. M. McCauley
Susan Guest, Michael Foster

Christ's Messengers

A group of singers formerly known as the Sounds of Harmony was reorganized, under the brilliant directorship of Albert L. Pridgen, to form CHRIST'S MESSENGERS. Since the activation of Christ's Messengers in 1991, they presently minister-in-song at the Mount Carmel Seventh-Day Seventh-Day Adventist Church. They have also ministered at several churches in the state of New York; as well as in Englewood and Teaneck, New Jersey; Hartford, Connecticut; Cleveland, Ohio; and Toronto Ontario, Canada. Their aspiration is to "lift the name of Jesus" by means of singing, and hopefully convey to their audiences a harmonious relationship with their Creator.
Conductor - Albert L. Pridgen

Michael Foster

Michael Foster hails from Titusville Florida. It can be said that music is in Michael's blood as several members of his family including Maureen McCauley demonstrate a love and appreciation for the art. Michael first began performing as a teenager with choirs and bands in the Central Florida area. From there, he went on to study voice and opera with Dr. Wayne Kompelien at Liberty University where he performed as a lead in several productions including "She Loves Me," "Into The Woods" and "Crazy for You." Michael pursued his masters in vocal performance at Florida State University under the direction of Janice Harsanyi while specializing in art song repertoire and oratorio performance. He has a Tallahassee Music Guild Scholarship and featured for two years as the bass soloist in their presentation of Handel's "Messiah." Michael has also enjoyed leading roles in "West Side Story," "Sunday in the Park with George," "The Sound of Music," and "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." Michael currently works at Park Avenue Baptist Church in Titusville as a worship leader and pastor to junior high students.
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The Spiritual before the Civil War
The term "spiritual" or "spiritual song" was used in print around 1740 to distinguish these usually religious songs from hymns and psalms. Almost universally today, "Spiritual" means "Negro Spiritual", which continues to be the preferred term for the songs that grew out of African music during eighteen and nineteenth century America slavery.

Historical record of the spiritual and its development is extremely sparse. Slaves in the southern United States were not allowed to learn to read or write; in fact, it was a crime, punishable by death in some states, to teach a slave to read. Spirituals were folk songs, learned and changed through singing.
The Negro spiritual may have existed in some form before the Christian influence, but the revivalist camp meeting of the 18th and 19th centuries is one of the known formative influences on both Negro and White spirituals. At these camp meetings, religious songs were put to folk melodies, a technique not practiced in Europe. To these, the slaves added their African musical traditions such as call-response and syncopation.

Frederick Douglass on "Spirituals"
Sometimes sad, but often joyous and usually hopeful, spirituals were frequently misunderstood by the whites, particularly during slavery. White slave owners would point out, and to some extent would be believed, that the singing showed that the Negroes were happy to be enslaved. Frederick Douglass (1817?-1895), an escaped slave and one of the most eloquent and effective abolitionists of the nineteenth century, refuted this notion very pointedly in one of his autobiographies (1845):

"I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears."
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The Rise of the Gospel Song (1865-1930's)
The end of the Civil War brought the abolition of slavery (1865) and an end of the southern slave-labor plantations where the Negro spiritual had grown. However, the blacks began to go to school and to college; some to study music. This provided the ability and the impetus to write down the old songs, later adding sophisticated arrangements in 4 and 8 voices, a cappella or with piano, organ or string band accompaniment. Church choirs were the early instruments in this transition. Christian former slaves , now freedmen, formed their own congregations within existing churches or established new predominantly Afro-American churches (mainly in the South.) The hymns and church songs they wrote contained much of the musical tradition of the spiritual, but the content had changed, emphasizing the "Good News" of the Gospels.

A Gospel Song Chronology
In the period that carried the Negro Spiritual from Emancipation to the "Golden Age of Gospel Singing" in the 1930's, some events were particularly notable:

1871 - The Fisk (University) Jubilee Singers, under George L. White, toured the United States and Europe in a highly successful effort to raise money for the fledgling black university in Nashville, Tennessee. Starting with a classical and popular song repertoire, the Singers soon switched their program when they found that Negro spirituals and the new evangelistic hymns had much greater public appeal.

1900 - Harry Burleigh (1866-1949) began to write and arrange Negro themes into classical settings. Burleigh had studied under Czech composer Antonin Dvorák at the National Conservatory of Music in New York City.

1923 - Hall Johnson (1888-1970), a professional violist, founded the Hall Johnson Negro Choir "...to show how the American Negro slaves ... created an art-form which was, and still is, unique in the world of music."

1931 - William L. Dawson (1898-1990) organized the School of Music at Tuskegee Institute. Dawson conducted the 100-voice Tuskegee Choir for the next twenty-five years, appearing before two US presidents and at the opening of the Radio City Music Hall.
1934 - Dawson's "Negro Folk Symphony" is performed by the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski.
Dawson is well-presented in our concert today. He arranged "Ain'-a That Good News" and "Ezekiel Saw de Wheel."

1935-1965 - Marian Anderson (1897-1993), a operatic contralto, included many spirituals in her repertoire, most notably, "Were you there when they Crucified my Lord?"

1930's - Jester Hairston (1902-2000) composed and arranged over 300 gospel songs, including today's arrangement of "Hold On!" Hairston is possibly better known as a sitcom actor, including the character "Rolly Forbes" in "Amen."

- Andrew Hadley; Nov 2005