Cornell choirs perform with Fisk Jubilee Singers

The preeminent performers of African American spirituals, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, will be on the Cornell College campus to workshop spirituals with the combined Cornell choirs, resulting in a concert at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 19, at Mount Vernon United Methodist Church. 

The concert is open to the public and free general admission tickets can be reserved online to ensure seating. The church is located two blocks from campus at 304 First Street SW in Mount Vernon. Cornell has been affiliated with the Methodist church since its founding in 1853. 

The Fisk Jubilee Singers will perform a program of African American spirituals, such as “Wade In the Water,” “Every Time I Feel the Spirit,” and “Steal Away.” The concert will close with Rollo Dilworth's "I Sing Because I'm Happy" with the Cornell choirs. 

Fisk Jubilee Singers Director G. Preston Wilson Jr. said this is a rare Iowa appearance by the ensemble from Fisk University, a historically Black college in Nashville, Tennessee. The ensemble received a Grammy Award in 2021 for Best Roots Gospel Album and was honored with the National Medal of the Arts, the highest artistic accolade in the nation.

The Jubilee Singers are responsible for popularizing the African American spiritual through their tours of the U.S. starting in 1871, and Europe beginning in 1873.

The ensemble will be on campus April 17–19. At noon on Friday, April 18, Wilson and the singers will present “Fisk Jubilee Singers: The Seed of American Music” on campus in Hedges Conference Room, Thomas Commons. The presentation is on performance practices of spirituals and Fisk's involvement in the development and dissemination of the African American spiritual. 

The seed of American music

“The Jubilee Singers did not create the Negro spiritual but they are responsible for pioneering its prominence as they went across the sea to sing this unique American art form. Because of what they did, they are the seed of American music. R&B, rock ’n’ roll, and country exist because of the Jubilee Singers,” Wilson said in an interview.

They began in 1871 performing classical and pop music of the time. Later that year they went on tour and programmed spirituals.

“Only when they started singing spirituals did audiences become enthused,” said Wilson, a 2010 Fisk graduate and former member of the Jubilee Singers who holds a Ph.D. in music education from the University of Missouri in Columbia.

The ensemble introduced the African American spiritual to Europe on an international tour in 1873. In England they performed for Queen Victoria, who was so pleased she commissioned a portrait of the singers. 

“The Jubilee Singers went on tour to raise money for the school, which was under dire straits. The 11 singers raised $150,000—worth $3.2M now—which settled the debts of the university and built Jubilee Hall,” said Wilson. “Because of what they did we enjoy not only the Negro spiritual and other types of American musical expression but Fisk University. They opened up the channel for the world to hear this American art form and made way for other genres to be birthed.”

Jubilee Singers is 5th recent artists-in-residence

For the past three years Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Choral Music Christopher Nakielski has invited prominent music directors and composers to work with the Cornell choirs before a special performance. 

“We’re bringing in artists and ensembles that we can perform with. For this generation, walking in and hearing a concert is not good enough,” he said. “They want an all-inclusive, integrative experience.”

There is, of course, an educational component as well.

“The Fisk Jubilee Singers are a direct lineage of the music formed in the slave fields and plantations to the music we know today. They’re the authority on traditional Black music, spirituals. Naturally it’s intriguing to us to bring in an ensemble and director that will help us in Iowa more accurately learn the proper performance practices behind America’s indigenous music,” Nakielski said. 

In 2023-24 Nakielski and his choirs hosted and performed with The Ambassadors of Harmony, a five-time international champion men’s barbershop chorus; performed works by American composer and conductor Z. Randall Stroope under his direction; and performed Elaine Hagenberg’s masterwork “Illuminare” under her direction.