Dr. Ysaye Barnwell

Singing in the African American Tradition

Sunday, January 11, 2004
2:30 – 5:00 pm

This workshop facilitates the development of community through the vehicle of music from the African American tradition. Musical forms include calls, chants, spirituals, ring shouts, hymns, gospels, songs of resistance from the Civil Rights and other freedom movements, and contemporary songs. Through participating in these songs and discussing their contexts, we will explore—from an African American world view—the values embedded in the music, the role of cultural and spiritual traditions and rituals, ways in which leadership emerges and can be shared by and among community members, the nature of cultural responses to and influences on political and social struggle, and ways to use this music in Christian worship.

Dr. Ysaye Barnwell has performed with the internationally acclaimed a cappella quintet Sweet Honey in the Rock since 1979. She is a vocalist with a range of over three octaves and appears on more than twenty-five recordings with Sweet Honey as well as other artists. Dr. Barnwell was the founder of the All Souls Jubilee Singers in Washington, DC, where she first began composing and arranging music for vocal ensembles. Barnwell has conducted this workshop on “Building a Vocal Community–Singing in the African American Tradition” throughout the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and Australia, utilizing African and African American history, values, cultural and vocal tradition to nurture singers and non-singers alike.

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