Home Worship Planning Music Resources A Tale of Two Choirs

A Tale of Two Choirs

Last month I attended two choral concerts in Nashville. One was by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers held at the historic home and "mother church" of country music, the Ryman Auditorium. The other was by the Alcorn State University choir from Mississippi, held in a local United Methodist church sanctuary.

Fisk University opened its doors in Nashville in 1866, just one year following the end of the Civil War. Its mission was to educate former slaves and the children of slaves. During its earliest years Fisk was the only university offering a liberal arts education to those newly freed persons who only a few years prior were forbidden by law to learn to read or write. Fisk's early financial difficulties threatened its continued existence, and in 1871, music professor George White decided to take his choir of five women and four men on a musical tour. They sang in small towns for small groups, taking in small offerings that didn't even cover expenses. They suffered through cold, hunger, inadequate clothing, lack of housing, and the hostility of mostly white audiences who expected them to sing the traditional minstrel show songs. But the Jubilee Singers' faith and dedication, as well as their supreme musicianship, began to turn adversity and failure into success. As they introduced the world to the Negro spiritual and demonstrated their musical excellence, they began to receive standing ovations, praise-filled news reviews, and larger audiences. They sang in large churches, colleges, and auditoriums. President Ulysses Grant welcomed them to the White House. They received critical acclaim in England, Holland, Scotland, Germany, Sweden, and Russia, eventually earning more than $150,000 that allowed the university to survive.

Today the Fisk University Jubilee Singers carry on this history and tradition, performing for audiences all over the world and on recordings. The concert I attended last month may be similar to most others, consisting largely of spirituals in concert arrangement, as well as choral arrangements of familiar and favorite hymns. There were twenty-three songs on the program, seventeen of which were concert spirituals, four hymns, and two contemporary songs. All of these were excellent choral arrangements and none were simple congregational settings. The singers' choral technique and training were polished and inspiring. They admirably succeeded in carrying on the Fisk Jubilee Singers tradition.

The other concert was by the Mississippi Alcorn State University choir, on its way home from singing at President Bush's second inauguration and by his invitation. The Alcorn choir presented a few spirituals, a couple of classical selections, but mostly arrangements of hymns and gospel and contemporary songs. It included two movements from Robert Ray's Gospel Mass, as well as his well-known and loved "He Never Failed Me Yet." The Alcorn choir has its own tradition of excellence, though many years shorter than that of Fisk.

The Fisk choir was most impressive for its perfection — of pitch, diction, blend, tone, expressiveness, and technique, and for the awe-inspiring tradition it maintains. It seemed perfectly suited to the exquisite acoustics and history of the Ryman Auditorium. The Alcorn choir's outstanding characteristic was its communication — its ability to connect with the audience, its encouragement of each other, its witness to the grace of God, the salvation of Christ, and the message of the Gospel — all accomplished with its own musical excellence, and not in a secular, institutional, educational auditorium, but in a house of worship.

The differences between the two university choirs do not constitute conflict or demonstrate anything to do with the worship wars in the church. The difference does demonstrate, however, the diversity of content and style that exists in African American sacred music today — one more cause for celebration during this Black History Month.

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