Black Catholic History Month is celebrated in November. The National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus of the United States designated November as Black Catholic History Month in 1990. The month was chosen because it includes important dates for Catholics of African descent, including:
- November 1: All Saints Day, a day to review the lives of the first 300 years of African saints
- November 2: All Souls Day, a day to remember those lost in the Middle Passage
- November 3: The Feast Day of Martin de Porres, the first Black American saint
- November 13: The Birthday of Saint Augustine
Learn more: A Place at the Table: African Americans on the Path to Sainthood
During the month of November, The Basilica will be honoring Black Catholics through art and music. The Saint Josephine Bakhita icon will be on the pulpit and the music selections will be by black composers.
Organ Music Selections by Samuel Holmberg:
Nov 3 – Reverie for Strings – Thomas Kerr (1915-1988) from African-American Organ Music Anthology, Vol. 6
From MorningStar Music Publishers:
Covering the span from mid-to late 20th Century, this series is designed to include music representing African-American men and women who wrote for the organ during this period. The music may be utilized either in recital or for the church service. Contrary to popular belief, the classical music of African-Americans not only includes works that are based on the Negro spiritual, but also include compositions based on or influenced by a variety of sources. Among these are plainchant, African-tribal tunes, general Protestant hymnody, German chorales, original composer themes, music from the Jewish liturgical tradition, as well as Civil Rights themes. One will find many of these categories represented herein.
The works represent a variety of composition forms that include, but are not limited to ternary form, sonata-allegro, rondo, theme and variation, and free form. Yet, because of historical stereotyping of African-Americans in society and the consequential lack of interest by music publishers, performers, and the public, much of this music has for a long time remained only in manuscript form. Since the advent of the Black Nationalist movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s, which resulted in greater emphasis being placed on the importance of black contributions to art, music, and literature, a few efforts have been made to address this problem. The genesis of these volumes constitutes one such effort.
As for the composers in the series, several are alumni of prominent musical institutions both in the U.S. and abroad. Moreover, several were recipients of prestigious composition awards. As for the series itself, its purpose is to draw attention to organ music produced by a sorely neglected, but substantive school of American composers whose recognition is long overdue. The music speaks for itself.
-Mickey Thomas Terry, Ph.D., Series Editor
Nov 10 – Arioso – David Hurd (b.1950)
The African-American composer, David Hurd, is widely recognized as one of the foremost church musicians and concert organists in the United States, with a long list of awards, prizes, and honors recognizing his achievements and expertise in organ performance, improvisation, and composition. From 1976 until 2015, David Hurd taught on the faculty of The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in New York City, eventually being named Professor of Church Music and Organist. For his work at The General Theological Seminary and for his substantial contribution to church music, four other seminaries have awarded him honorary doctorates. He has taught also at Duke University, Manhattan School of Music, Westminster Choir College, and Yale University.
He studied in New York at the Juilliard School, the High School of Music and Art, and the Manhattan School of Music. His undergraduate music degree is from Oberlin College in Ohio, and he continued his studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
As a concert organist David Hurd enjoys instant recognition both at home and abroad. Since winning first prizes both in organ performance and in improvisation of the 1977 International Congress of Organists, he has performed throughout North America and Europe, and has been a featured artist at numerous national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists. He is represented exclusively in North America by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, LLC.
He is the composer of dozens of published choral, vocal, liturgical, and organ works. In 2010 he became the fifteenth recipient of The American Guild of Organists’ Distinguished Composer Award. From 1998 until 2013 he was Music Director and Organist at Church of the Holy Apostles (Episcopal) in New York City. In 2016, he was appointed Organist and Music Director of the famed Church of St. Mary the Virgin at Times Square.
Nov 17 – Andantino (from Organ Sonata No. 1) – Florence Price
From Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame:
Born in Little Rock in 1887, Florence Beatrice Smith Price became the first African-American female composer to have a composition performed by a major American symphony orchestra. Her classical piece, Symphony in E Minor, was performed by the Chicago Symphony of Orchestra in 1933. It was also performed at the Chicago World’s Fair as part of the Century of Progress Exhibition.
She composed more than 300 works in her lifetime, including chamber music, vocal compositions and songs for radio. Her style is a mix of classical European music and black spirituals and rhythms.
Florence was first introduced to music by her mother — a piano teacher and businesswoman — and she published her first original pieces in high school. She finished as a valedictorian in 1903 and attended the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she graduated with honors in 1906. She returned to Arkansas to teach music in Arkadelphia, then at Shorter College in North Little Rock, finally landing in Atlanta to head the music department at Clark University. She married in 1912 in Little Rock, and had three children, one who died in infancy. In Little Rock, she opened a music studio, taught piano and continued to compose, but was not allowed to join the Arkansas State Music Teachers Association because of her race.
Segregation and racial discrimination in the South eventually prompted Florence and her family to move to Chicago in 1927 where she had several works accepted for publication, including her Piano Sonata in E Minor. She also won first prize in the Rodman Wanamaker Music Competition for her first symphony. She composed several songs, one sung by Marian Anderson at her famous Lincoln Memorial concert in 1939. Following the 1933 premiere of her Symphony in E Minor, the orchestras of Detroit, Pittsburgh and Brooklyn performed subsequent compositions by Price.
Nearly 10 years after her death in 1953, a Chicago Elementary school took her name as a tribute to her legacy as a black composer. As a teacher in Little Rock, she had immense influence on many of her students.
Manuscripts, books and other papers belonging to Price were discovered in an abandoned Illinois home in 2009, and those works were secured by the University of Arkansas. Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and No 2, contained within the findings, were recorded in Fayetteville. The BBC symphony orchestra performed one of her “lost” compositions in London in March 2018. She’s also been the subject of recent articles in the New York Times and the New Yorker. A documentary film about Price’s life and music has aired on PBS affiliate stations as well as at film festivals in the United States and in the United Kingdom.
Choir Music Selections by Patrick Schneider
On Sunday, November 10, the women of the Cathedral Choir will sing “Ascribe to the Lord” by Rosephanye Powell (b.1962).
Dr. Powell serves as Professor of Voice at Auburn University. She holds degrees from The Florida State University (D.M. in vocal performance, University Fellow), Westminster Choir College (M.M. in vocal performance and pedagogy, with distinction), and Alabama State University (B.M.E., summa cum laude). An accomplished singer and voice professor, Dr. Powell’s research focuses on the art of the African-American spiritual and voice care concerns for voice professionals (specifically, music educators, choral directors, and choral singers). She travels the country and internationally presenting lectures, song demonstrations, and serving as a workshop clinician, conductor, and adjudicator for solo vocal competitions/auditions, honor choirs, choral workshops and festivals.
On Sunday, November 17, the men of the Cathedral Choir will sing “We Shall Walk Through the Valley in Peace,” a traditional African American spiritual arranged by William Appling (1932-2008).
From Wikipedia:
William Thomas Appling was a renowned American conductor, pianist, educator and arranger. As a conductor he led the William Appling Singers & Orchestra for almost twenty-five years and conducted other choirs and musical organizations, premiering new works by many American composers. As a pianist he played under the batons of conductors including Robert Shaw, Louis Lane, and Darius Milhaud, and he was the first African American to record the complete piano music of Scott Joplin. As an educator he taught at American schools and universities including Vassar College, Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Institute of Music and Western Reserve Academy. He made a number of recordings as both conductor and pianist, and his choral arrangements have been performed and recorded by such prominent ensembles as Chanticleer, Cantus and Dale Warland Singers.