Composer Evelyn Simpson Curenton discusses the history she considered while arranging the music of “Spirituals in Concert.”
Features
TRANSCRIPT
♪♪ I trust in God wherever I may be ♪♪ I did get a chance to see a documentary on Kathleen Battle and her family, and they showed her in a little church, I think it looked like a little wooden church, probably with plank floors.
And there she was singing a beautiful hymn.
♪♪ Watches over me ♪♪ In a church like that, one of those old rural churches, they would be singing songs like that. Those old spirituals.
We have something that we call lined out.
A lot of times it was done because the people at the time could not read during the time of slavery and the person would line out the songs like 'Amazing Grace' and say, amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.
And then the congregation would go.
♪♪ Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound ♪♪ And these melodies would be known, you know, to the congregation.
And I can't imagine that, that Kathleen was not familiar with that.
So all of those things were a challenge of things that I had to think about, you know, in the writing. And so, and trying to keep as much of the historical type of writing as possible in the context, you know, of African American indigenous singing.
