| American Spiritual Ensemble conducted by Dr. Everett McCorvey performs Saturday at BGSU. (Photo courtesy American Spiritual Ensemble/Jonathan Palmer) |
The American Spiritual Ensemble’s musical roots run deep.Born in slavery, the spirituals
became the song of freedom.The music not only "tells America’s story," said the ensemble’s
director and founder Dr. Everett McCorvey, "It is part of America’s history … It’s not until the
spirituals came that America began to find its voice."Yet this "mother" of the American
sound, a sound from which the blues and jazz and all the styles that sprang from them, "was starting to
get lost."That’s why in 1995 he founded the American Spiritual Ensemble, drawing on the voices of
African-American opera singers."I wanted to make sure this music stayed alive in our American
culture," he said in a recent telephone interview. "I wanted to create a group to celebrate the
American Negro spiritual."McCorvey will conduct the ensemble in a Festival Series concert Saturday at 8
p.m. in Kobacker Hall on the Bowling Green State University campus. Tickets are $12 to $38. Call (419)
372-8171 or visit www.bgsu.edu/arts.McCorvey said he felt that the spirituals were being confused with
gospel music, a much later iteration of African American church music.Gospel music arose when jazz and blues
musicians, most notably Thomas "Georgia Tom" Dorsey, started playing in churches bringing those
rhythms and harmonies to worship. At first pastors objected until they realized that young people were now
flocking to church.The spirituals were born centuries before "in the slave fields and cotton fields of
the south," he said. Cut off from their native cultures, the Africans brought to America "had to
assimilate a whole new way of communicating," he said."They found it in the churches of the slave
masters. They identified with the characters in the Bible. They felt if these characters in the Bible were
able to survive difficult circumstances, they as slaves would be able to survive. … From the hymns and
stories they fashioned their own style of music that helped them get through the days as they worked in the
fields."Some of the songs contained code that they could use to communicate aspirations and plans for
seeking freedom, McCorvey said.After emancipation, the music entered the concert halls, first under the
auspices of the Fisk Jubilee Singers.Later performers, including Marian Anderson, sang them from concert
stages around the world, even as they were blocked from performing on the major stages in their home
countries.McCorvey’s approach is to engage opera singers and then have new arrangements with four-, five-,
even six-part harmonies. "The sound is just indescribable," he said.These choral pieces are
interspersed with solo performances.Because of the experience of the singers, the ensemble also performs
some jazz and Broadway tunes as well. "All highlight the black experience," McCorvey said.The
director draws on a roster of a 100 singers to put together a touring ensemble of 20 to 25 performers.All
are freelance vocalists, who have credits including appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, Chicago Lyric
Opera, San Francisco Opera and City Opera of New York as well as Broadway.Whenever he posts a notice that
he’s organizing a tour, he hears back that singers are eager to come along."It’s more than a tour, it’s
a calling," he said. The ensemble is like a family. "It’s good for the soul."He added:
"One of the things that we find all over the country, when we sing, when people know this history,
there’s an amazing sense of pride."People of all races feel that pride," he said. "This is
America’s music."
