The Knoxville Handel Society, under the direction of Dr. Everett McCorvey, filled the magnificent Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus on Northshore Drive with glorious presentations of American spirituals last Sunday evening.
Joining McCorvey and the Handel Society choir as soloists were soprano Jeryl Cunningham-Fleming, soprano Hope Koehler, tenor John Wesley Wright and bass Kevin Thompson. The soloists often sing with the American Spiritual Ensemble, founded and directed by McCorvey, who is also the director of opera studies, director of opera and professor of voice at the University of Kentucky.
In his opening comments, McCorvey pointed out that the preservation of American spirituals owes an enormous debt to Czech composer Antonín Dvorák.
In 1892, when Dvorák was invited to come to the United States to become the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York, he agreed to do so only if he could admit black students to the conservatory.
Already aware of the music of the Deep South, during his stay in the States Dvorák declared that all America had to do to have its own distinctive music, separate from the European tradition, was pay attention to the songs that originated among the slaves. With that statement he inspired a movement to collect and preserve the music that had been instrumental in the creation of the distinctive American jazz and blues.
What became clear in this concert is that this music is at its most wonderful in simple presentations.
The big choral singing of the opening two spirituals, “Walk Together, Children” and “I Believe This Is Jesus,” at least in the resounding acoustics of this great hall, seemed to overpower the simplicity of the song.
On the other hand, the quieter, slower singing by the huge choir of “My Lord, What a Mornin’” and “Away in a Manger,” sung in the second half, which expanded into other forms of music, were moving in their simplicity.
The same held true for the soloists. Bass Thompson’s singing of “Ev’ry Time I Feel de Spirit” was powerful and transcendent. It received thunderous applause.
But it was the great African-American composer William Grant Still’s arrangement of “Here’s One,” sung at moments in barely a whisper by tenor Wright, that held the audience in extended silence after his last note traveled the length of the sanctuary.
It was, for me, one of the most beautiful presentations of a spiritual that will stay in my memory a long time.
Wright also sang Franz Biebl’s “Ave Maria” and “Bring Him Home” from the musical “Les Miserables.”
Thompson, in his booming voice, sang “Ol’ Man River” from “Show Boat.”
To end the program, McCorvey led the choir and the audience in a thunderous “Amen.”
The Knoxville Handel Society’s spring concert will be at First Baptist Church downtown on April 27, 2019.
More information and ticket purchases can be found here.