Brief Biographies of Selected Composers
Content selected from So You Want to Sing Spirituals’s Appendix 7-Contributing Composers’ Brief Biographies.
Uzee Brown, Jr. (b. 14 November 1942, Cowpens, South Carolina) studied at Morehouse College, received his master’s degree in composition from Bowling Green State University, with a second master’s and his doctoral degree in performance at the University of Michigan. Brown developed a career as an operatic and concert vocalist, researcher and educator, serving as chair of the Music Department at Morehouse. He was also president of the National Association of Negro Musicians. Brown’s first eight-spirituals collection, O Redeemed!, was published in 1994 and recorded on the CD, Great Day! Spirituals, in 2005.
John Daniels Carter was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on 19 April 1932 and died on 24 July 1981 in Hempstead, New York. Carter served as composer-in-residence with the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, DC) in 1968 and was an instructor at Federal City College, Washington, in the 1970s. He published Cantata in 1964 for soprano Leontyne Price. After a short instrumental prelude, he used four Negro spirituals—“Peter Go Ring Dem Bells,” “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” “Let Us Break Bread Together,” and “Ride On, King Jesus”—as melodic source material for the individual sections of the work.
Audio Recordings: Christine Brewer. Songs by Wagner, Wolf, Britten and John Carter. Wigmore Hall Live WHLive0022, 2008, compact disc; Ray Wade. Sence You Went Away. Albany Records TROY 388, 1998, compact disc.
Roland Marvin Carter (b. 4 May 1942, Chattanooga, Tennessee) studied music at Hampton University, New York University, the Catholic University of America and the Aspen Choral Institute. His career as an educator includes his current professorial position at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He has focused on the preservation of the Negro spiritual both as a composer of choral and solo works and as an accompanist and choral director. He served a six-year term as president of the National Association of Negro Musicians.
Carter, along with composers Wendell Whalum and Betty Jackson King, each contributed two concert spirituals to God Is a God. Carter stated that there is no clear order to the placement of the pieces, leaving their organization to the performer’s discretion.
Jacqueline Butler Hairston (b. 18 December 1938, Charlotte, North Carolina) is a composer, educator, choral director and pianist who studied at Julliard, Howard University, and Columbia University. Sharing an interest in the heritage of African American folk music with her cousin, composer Jester Hairston (1901-2000), she has used spirituals to compose songs that have been performed and recorded by professional choral and solo vocal performers. Two of Hairston’s concert spirituals, “This Little Light of Mine” and “Guide My Feet,” are included in the Willis Patterson score compilation, The New Negro Spiritual.
Audio Recordings: Kenneth Overton. Been in de Storm So Long: Songs My Fathers Taught Me. American Spiritual Ensemble, 2012, compact disc; Robert Sims. In the Spirit: Spirituals and American Songs with Orchestra and Chorus. Canti Classics, 2009, compact disc; William Warfield, Benjamin Matthews, Robert Sims. Three Generations Live. Canti Records, 2000, compact disc; Kathleen Battle. Angels’ Glory. Sony Classical SK 62723, 1996, compact disc; Louise Toppin. Ah! Love But a Day. Albany Records/Videmus TROY 385, 2000, compact disc; Darryl Taylor. How Sweet the Sound. Albany TROY1244, 2011, compact disc.
Moses George Hogan (b. 13 March 1957, New Orleans, Louisiana; d. 11 February 2003, New Orleans, Louisiana) Hogan graduated from the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Known first as a concert pianist, Hogan began organizing choral groups and composing works for chorus and for solo voice. He was editor of the collection, Oxford Book of Spirituals, which was published in 2001, and he published The Deep River Collection: Ten Spirituals Arranged for Solo Voice and Piano—with high and low voice editions—in 2000.
Audio recordings: Moses Hogan. Give Me Jesus. EMI Classics 7243 5 56788 2 9, 1998, compact disc; Derek Lee Ragin. Negro Spirituals. Virgin Classics 0946 363305 2 5, 2006, compact disc.
Eva Alberta Jessye (b. 20 January 1895, Coffeyville, Kansas; d. 21 February 1992, Ann Arbor, Michigan) Born to ex-slaves, Jessye was best known as founder and director of the Eva Jessye Choir, which gained international recognition for its work on radio, in films and on Broadway, including performing in Virgil Thomson’s opera, Four Saints in Three Acts. She was the music director for the original cast of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. An educator, singer, poet, and actress, Jessye also composed works for chorus and solo voice.
Jessye published My Spirituals for solo voice in 1927. She prefaced each of the 16 songs in the collection with stories and poems about family and community members who sang those folk songs in worship or during everyday or special life events. In the preface of her collection, Jessye explained her approach to selecting the songs:
Those who are unfamiliar with the Negro citizenry of Southern Kansas may question the authenticity of Spirituals gathered from so Northern a source. On second thought they will realize that Kansas, and especially the Southern section, was the nearest refuge of the runaway slave. It was the state which reached out protecting hand to the fugitives and escorted them via the “underground railroad” to a land of freedom and brotherhood.
Betty Lou Jackson King (b. 17 February 1928, Chicago, Illinois; d. Wildwood, New Jersey, 1 June 1994). After completing her education in music composition, she developed a career as an educator, church musician, lecturer, choral director, composer, and music publisher. Jackson King, along with composers Roland Carter and Wendell Whalum, each contributed two concert spirituals to God Is a God. Carter stated that there is no clear order to the placement of the pieces, leaving their organization to the performer’s discretion.“Calvary” was dedicated to baritone William Warfield and is described as depicting, “… the horrors of the crucifixion with dissonant harmonies in the piano accompaniment as the introduction that returns with each voice. In the bass, you hear the hammering and the death knell that becomes more insistent with each verse. This is best suited for a low voice and requires dramatic intensity.”
John Rosamond Johnson (b. Jacksonville, Florida, 11 August 1873; d. New York, New York, 11 November 1954). This composer, singer, educator, and conductor studied voice and piano at the New England Conservatory. He partnered with his brother, James Weldon Johnson, to become successful writers and performers in vaudeville and musical theatre. The pair also collaborated on the creation of the anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and on two of J. Rosamond Johnson’s African American music anthologies.
Audio Recordings: Anderson, Marian. Farewell Recital. RCA Victor LSC 2781, 1964, long– playing disc; Duncan, Todd. Negro spirituals. Allegro ALG3022, 1952?, long-playing disc.
Thomas Henderson Kerr, Jr. (b. Baltimore, Maryland, 3 January 1915; d. Washington, DC, 26 August 1988) Kerr attended the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, New York, where he received the Bachelor of Music degree. He joined the faculty at Howard University, Washington, DC, in 1943 and served for 35 years as a piano and composition instructor and organist. He also toured extensively as a concert pianist. Kerr composed primarily for the organ; however, he also wrote piano, choral, and solo vocal works, including concert spirituals.
Audio recordings: Jessye Norman. Spirituals. Philips 416 462-2, 1990, compact disc; Darryl Taylor. How Sweet the Sound. Albany TROY1244, 2011, compact disc.
William Lawrence (b. Charleston, South Carolina, 20 September 1895; d. 17 March 1981, New York, New York). Lawrence studied music at Avery Normal Institute, Charleston, the New England Conservatory, Boston, Boston University, as well as in Paris. He toured extensively, both as accompanist for tenor Roland Hayes and as part of the Hayes Trio. His setting of the communion hymn, “Let Us Break Bread Together,” was published in 1945 and has become a spirituals standard over the years.
Audio Recordings: Leontyne Price and Marian Anderson. The Best of Negro Spirituals. BMG Funhouse BVCM-37416, 2003, compact disc.
Charles Lloyd, Jr. (b. 22 September 1948, Toledo, Ohio; d. 22 June 2024). Lloyd received his Bachelor of Science in music education from Norfolk State University and Master of Music from the University of Michigan. Since he was first exposed to spirituals during his studies at Norfolk State– with further study of spirituals encouraged by Michigan’s voice department chair, Willis Patterson, Lloyd has composed songs for solo voice and for chorus as well as operatic and instrumental works. He joined the music faculty at the Southern University in Baton Rouge and has been active as a piano accompanist.
A number of Lloyd’s works have been recorded but not credited to the composer. However, his compilation, The Spiritual Art Song Collection, with accompanying compact disc, was published by Warner Bros. in 2000. In a 2010 interview, Lloyd talked about his approach to composing spirituals: “I did not take composition classes or anything like that; my understanding was based on the spirituals. Those medieval modes, church modes tend to slip into the spirituals. You know spirituals make use of the Dorian mode, and sometimes the Lydian and Mixolydian modes… and the blues tones, flatted fifth, and when you mess around with the thirds, and sevenths… and I think that has become my style.”
Lena Mae (née Johnson) McLin (b. 5 September 1929, Atlanta, Georgia) was raised in the home of her uncle, Gospel music great Thomas A. Dorsey, whose choir she accompanied. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in music from Spelman College and master’s from the American Conservatory of Music, McLin taught music in the Chicago public school system. She instructed several students who went on to professional careers in Classical and popular music. A choral director, lecturer, author and ordained minister, McLin is also credited as a composer of over 400 choral and solo vocal works, as well as instrumental and electronic compositions.
Audio Recordings: Mark Rucker. Mark Rucker Sings Lena McLin: Songs for Voice & Piano. Kjos Music Press KCD8, 2002, compact disc; Sims, Robert. Soul of a Singer: Robert Sims Sings: African-American Folk Songs. Canti Records 9801, 1998?, compact disc.
Robert Leigh Morris was born in Chicago, Illinois on 22 April 1941. Morris received his bachelor’s degree from DePaul University in Chicago, with graduate studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, and The University of Iowa, Iowa City. He served as choral director at Hampton University, Virginia, Winston-Salem State University, North Carolina, and at Jackson State University in Mississippi before accepting his current post as Director of Choral Activities for Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota. Choral arranger for Edward “Duke” Ellington and founder of the Leigh Morris Chorale, Morris has also composed numerous works for mixed chorus, most of which use Afrocentric folk themes. His Lyric Suite: A Collection of Spirituals in Gospel Style, was written in 1970 and published in 2000.
Audio Recordings: Louise Toppin. Heart on the Wall: African American Art Songs for Orchestra. Albany Records TROY1314, 2011, compact disc.
Shawn Ehireime Okpebholo (b. 28 March 1981, Lexington, Kentucky) completed his undergraduate studies in composition and music history from Asbury College, and he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in composition and theory from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music. In addition to his burgeoning career as a composer of vocal and instrumental music, he currently teaches music composition and theory at Wheaton College Conservatory of Music.
A composer of a wide range of instrumental and vocal works, Okpebholo published many of his concert spirituals in the 2013 collection, Steal Away, with a follow-up compact disc featuring baritone Will Liverman and mezzo-soprano J’nai Bridges released in 2014.
Robert Lee Owens (b. 4 February 1925, Dennison, Texas; d. 5 January 2017, Munich, Germany) began his musical training at an early age, first in piano and, by high school, music theory and composition. As a pianist, educator, and composer, he became acquainted with poet Langston Hughes, who became one of several 19th- and 20th-century poets whose texts Owens used in his compositions. He emigrated to Germany, where he sought professional musical opportunities he believed he would not find in the United States. Over his career, Owens used his exposure to Western European and American stylistic practices to create his own distinctive compositional approach. Owens published the song cycle, Six Negro Spirituals for Bass (Baritone) and Piano, in 2005.
Audio recordings: Oral Moses. Come Down Angels and Trouble the Water: Negro Spirituals, an American National Treasure! Albany Records TROY 1489, 2014, compact disc; Darryl Taylor.Fields of Wonder. Albany TROY897, 2006, compact disc.
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (b. 14 June 1932, New York, New York; d. 9 March 2004, Chicago, Illinois) came from a musical family background and attended New York’s High School of Music and Art and New York University. After receiving his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, he accepted positions as an instructor at Brooklyn College and as conductor of the Brooklyn Community Symphony Orchestra while continuing his musical studies in orchestral conducting at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Perkinson’s professional career reflected his musical stylistic range, spanning the Classical, Blues, and Jazz worlds as a pianist, conductor, arranger and composer–including ballet and film musical scores–for instrumental and vocal solos and ensembles.
Julia Amanda Perry (Born, 25 March 1924, Lexington, Kentucky; died, Akron, Ohio, 24 April 1979). Born into a musical family, Perry moved to Akron, where she studied music in the public school and then at Akron University, Westminister Choir College. She continued her studies at Julliard, Berkshire Music Center, and composition and orchestral conducting in Europe. Perry taught at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and at Atlanta University. Perry twice earned the Guggenheim Fellowship; she was also the recipient of a Boulanger Grand Prix and an award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. She gained international acclaim for her Stabat Mater for contralto and string orchestra. Her compositions included over 50 works for a variety of solo instruments and large and small ensembles, as well as solo vocal and choral works.
Audio recordings: Shirley Verrett. Shirley Verrett Recital. Suiza OSCD 223, 1991, compact disc.
Evelyn Simpson-Curenton (b. 1953, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was born into a professional musical family. After beginning her piano studies at an early age, she attended Temple University, completing her undergraduate degree in music education and voice. She has been active as an educator, pianist, organist, and composer of music for a variety of music entities. Simpson-Curenton was a commissioned participant in the Negro spirituals concert, featuring sopranos Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman, at Carnegie Hall. Simpson-Curenton’s “Oh, Glory,” was set for soprano (Battle), flute and harp.
Hale Smith (b. Cleveland, Ohio, 29 June 1925; d. Freeport, New York, 24 November 2009) His professional career included serving as an editor and music consultant for various music publishing houses and teaching at Long Island University and the University of Connecticut, Storrs. He has composed numerous orchestral and chamber works, as well as several choral and solo vocal pieces. His settings of “Jesus, Lay Your Head in the Window” and “This Little Light of Mine” were written in 1986 and published by his Halsco publishing company.
Audio Recordings: Nicole Heaston. Marilyn Horne Foundation Presents on Wings of Song: Recital No. 9. Marilyn Horne Foundation, DCD 5028, 2001, compact disc; George Shirley. George Shirley at 80: My Time Has Come! Videmus Records, 2014, compact disc.
Undine Smith Moore (b. Jarrett, Virginia, 25 August 1904; d. Petersburg, Virginia, 6 February 1989) Smith Moore, the granddaughter of former slaves, began studying piano as a child. She completed her undergraduate studies at Fisk and received her master’s degree from Columbia University Teachers College, with additional study at Julliard, Manhattan School of Music and Eastman. She taught first in the Goldsboro, North Carolina, public school system and a 45-year tenure at Virginia State College. She shared her interest in the music of Black America through workshops and lectures across the United States. While Smith Moore primarily composed choral works, including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Scenes from the Life of a Martyr, she also wrote a number of chamber and orchestral works, as well as solo works for voice and for various solo instruments. Several of her concert spirituals were published in two collections, The New Negro Spiritual—compiled by Willis Patterson in 2002—and Art Songs and Spirituals by African-American Women Composers—published by Hildegard Publishing in 1995. The collections either included or inspired compact disc recordings of the represented works.
Audio Recordings: Videmus. Watch and Pray: Spirituals and Art Songs by African-American Women Composers. Koch International Classics 3-7247-2H1, 1994, compact disc.
William Grant Still (b. 11 May 1895, Woodville, Mississippi; d. 3 December 1978, Los Angeles, California). Known as the “Dean of Black Music,” Still studied at Wilberforce University and Oberlin College, and he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. His Afro-American Symphony was the first by an African American composer to be performed by a major orchestra. While he wrote for the operatic stage and for television, as well as vocal and instrumental works for the concert stage, he set few spirituals for solo vocal concert performance. He preferred, instead, to use blues elements for his inspiration. However, he did compose and publish Twelve Negro Spirituals (Handy Bros. Music, 1937) for voice and piano.
Audio Recordings: Various performers. More Still: Music by William Grant Still. Cambria CD1112, 1999, compact disc; Videmus. Works. New World Records 80399-2, 1990, compact disc.
Damien LeChateau Sneed (b. 30 January 1977, Augusta, Georgia) is a multi-faceted musician whose abilities have expressed themselves since he began piano study at age three. He received his bachelor’s in piano performance from Howard University, master’s in music technology from New York University, with additional study at Peabody Conservatory and the Manhattan School of Music. He has served as accompanist for numerous professional Classical and Jazz performers as well as performing as a piano soloist. In addition to his roles as educator, music producer, and choral director, he has composed, arranged and orchestrated music for a variety of musical forces.
Sneed collaborated with tenor Lawrence Brownlee on Spiritual Sketches, a recording of Sneed’s concert spirituals, which was published in 2013.
Clarence Cameron White (b. 10 August 1880, Clarksville, Tennessee; d. 30 June 1960, New York, New York). White was a violinist, composer, and educator who began his violin studies at the age of 8–including coaching with violinist Will Marion Cook. He continued his musical study at Oberlin Conservatory and in London with teachers such as composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. White composed for both vocal and instrumental forces continued to perform as a violinist and served on the faculties at West Virginia State College and Hampton Institute. He was also a charter member of the National Association of Negro Musicians. White’s collection of spirituals, Forty Negro Spirituals: Compiled and Arranged for Solo Voice, was published in 1927. In the preface of the collection, the composer suggested that “… the Negro dialect, as sung, should not be an exaggeration of the written form of the words, whose spelling is only an approximation to the actual sound in genuine Negro dialect; and the element of syncopation shall not lose its nature as a secondary offshoot of the rhythm of words and syllables, and be mispresented as mere musical surprise.”
Wendell Phillips Whalum, Sr. (b. 4 September 1931, Memphis, Tennessee; d. Atlanta, Georgia, 9 June 1987) was a musically active youth performing at churches in Memphis. Whalum matriculated to Morehouse College and Columbia University, finishing his doctoral study at the University of Iowa. He taught at Morehouse for over 40 years and directed its choir to international acclaim. Also known for his skills as an instructor, organist, and musicologist, he composed numerous works for chorus and solo voice. Whalum, along with composers Betty Jackson King and Roland Carter, each contributed two Spiritual settings to God Is a God. Carter stated that there is no clear order to the placement of the pieces, leaving their organization to the performer’s discretion.
John Wesley Work III (b. 15 July 1901, Tullahoma, Tennessee; d. 17 May 1967, Nashville, Tennessee). Work was born into a musical family, where his mother was a trained singer, his father was a music professor at Fisk, and his paternal grandfather was a church choral director who had worked with some of the original members of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Unsurprisingly, his musical studies started at an early age, leading to undergraduate study at Fisk, additional study at the Institute of Musical Art (later renamed Julliard), a master’s degree from Columbia, a second bachelor’s from Yale, and an honorary doctorate from Fisk. In addition to his music teaching and administrative duties at Fisk, he extensively wrote scholarly articles and participated in a major field study of Mississippi Delta folk songs for the Library of Congress. As a composer, Work wrote for a variety of solo and ensemble forces, but he focused on choral and solo vocal music.
Audio Recordings: Leontyne Price. Great Moments at Carnegie Hall. RCA Red Seal 88985304202, 2016, compact disc; Kevin Maynor. Songs of America from Another American. Guild GMCD 7247, 2002, compact disc.
Contents of this document may be used for non-commercial purposes only if the source is acknowledged. All material remains the property of its creator. All commercial rights reserved. Copyright ©2019-2025.