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Music students’ spirituals competition to honor the African American experience

Music students’ spirituals competition to honor the African American experience

Music student Shirlyn Davenport will compete in the American Negro Spirituals category.

NOVEMBER 9, 2020 — Two students from UTSA’s Department of Music will participate for the first time in the National Association of Teachers of Singing Competition’s American Negro Spirituals category in the Texoma Regional division. Spirituals are songs that describe the African American experience, including slavery and the fight for freedom. UTSA, by promoting this musical scholarship, continues its efforts to promote diversity in the curriculum.

“Our music students are particularly hungry for the inclusion of minority composers in the repertoire studied while at UTSA,” said music lecturer in voice Crystal Jarrell Johnson. “One of our goals is to provide opportunities for exploring and learning diverse repertoire that the students will carry with them as they go into their careers.”

According to the 1860 census, nearly 4 million enslaved Africans were living in the United States at the time. Forced from their homeland, they brought with them a rich musical tradition that, over time, melded with traditional hymns to produce an entirely new musical canon: the spiritual.

A genre unique to America, spirituals were slave work songs, laments and chants that included covert messages often used to help enslaved Africans locate safe escape routes. Spirituals later became the genre that influenced the blues, jazz and even protest songs of the 1960s civil rights movement.


“Our music students are particularly hungry for the inclusion of minority composers in the repertoire studied.”



“What drew me to spirituals is the deep connection they have to our country’s past,” said music education major Shirlyn Davenport, one of 13 students who participated in UTSA’s Vocal Arts Series virtual concert Deep River: An Afternoon of Spirituals in October. Davenport is also one of the two students from UTSA who will compete at Texoma NATS in the spiritual category. “They are the stories of slaves, and it’s the music they wrote to tell the stories of the traumatic experiences they went through. Growing up as a black girl, I didn’t learn a lot about slavery. I didn’t learn that these songs were all about them [enslaved Africans] trying to escape.”

The virtual recital featured opening remarks providing historical context by George Shirley, the first African American tenor to perform a leading role at the Metropolitan Opera.

For the competition Davenport prepared four selections from some of the leading spiritual composers, such as Moses Hogan, H.T. Burleigh, Florence Price and Francis Hall Johnson. Born in Athens, Georgia, in 1888, Johnson was influenced by his grandmother, a former slave who exposed him to the early form of spirituals. In the late 1930s Johnson achieved great commercial success, and many of his arrangements appeared in Hollywood films.

While many of the composers of spirituals remain unknown, due to the genre’s oral tradition, Johnson and a handful of other spirituals composers are said to have elevated the spiritual genre to be comparable in musical sophistication to the compositions of globally celebrated classical composers. 


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“I think representation matters, and being able to tell the stories with the voice that I have is really important,” added Davenport.

The NATS American Negro Spirituals category was added to encourage singers to explore, study and perform these songs, born out of a dark period in American History. A total of 27 students from the UTSA Voice Area will compete in the larger Texoma NATS Regional Auditions, which are being held online for the first time.

— Milady Nazir and Alyx Bowles



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UTSA Today is produced by University Communications and Marketing, the official news source of The University of Texas at San Antonio. Send your feedback to news@utsa.edu. Keep up-to-date on UTSA news by visiting UTSA Today. Connect with UTSA online at Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Instagram.


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