The purpose of this document is to study the importance of the African American spiritual in the contemporary public-school choral classroom. This work analyzes ways in which the spiritual may be used to foster cultural and historical understanding and empathy within the choral ensemble. A brief history of slavery in the United States and the early folksongs of the slaves is given. The significance of the Fisk Jubilee Singers in the development of the concert spiritual is explored. Important musical, and structural elements common to the concert spiritual are investigated and the frequency of the use of dialect within the performance repertory is discussed.
The acceptance and performance of the spiritual throughout the twentieth century is due to the contributions of its early arrangers. Several of the arrangers mentioned here include Harry T. Burleigh, John Rosamund Johnson and brother James Weldon Johnson, Hall Johnson, Eva Jessye, William Grant Still, Jester Hairston, Undine Smith Moore, and William Henry Smith. Excerpts of works by John Wesley Work, R. Nathaniel Dett and Leonard de Paur are included by way of example. A detailed examination of five concert spirituals and their usefulness and effectiveness in the modern choral ensemble is provided. The arrangers of those works include William L. Dawson, Alice Parker, Raymond Wise, Stacey V. Gibbs and Moses Hogan. Brief biographical information about each arranger is provided. Excerpts of interviews with both Alice Parker and Raymond Wise are used to support the analysis. Suggestions for the programming of these works as well as a pedagogic approach to their presentation in the classroom are given.