Music Box
February 26, 2023
Jubal Joslyn, tenor
Janneke Hoogland, cello
Cathryn Wilkinson, organ
The Music Box
Prelude
Give Me Jesus……arr. Marques L.A. Garrett
Deep River……arr. Duane Funderburk
Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child……arr. Samuel Coleridge Taylor
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot……arr. Carsten Gerlitz
Offertory
Steal Away……arr. Hal H. Hopson
Postlude
Jesus is A-Listenin’……arr. Duane Funderburk
A Page From the Music History Books
In celebration of February as Black History month, today’s music comes from the African American tradition. These songs were passed down to children of enslaved families over many generations, and met a wider audience when they spread through urban communities in the north after the Civil War. The later genres of blues in nightclubs and gospel songs in church are both rooted in the melodies and style of earlier African American spirituals.
The first collection of African American spirituals was published in New York in 1867 and included songs such as “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” and “Bosom of Abraham” that are still popular today. More sophisticated arrangements by prominent African American composers such as Harry Burleigh and William Dawson followed in the mid 20th-century, beginning another tradition that continues today, with spirituals as standard and technically challenging repertoire for concert choirs.
