PHOTO | HENRY HUHTULAG

The American Spiritual Ensemble will perform at Wingate University’s McGee Theatre on Jan. 26. The ensemble also has stops in Lenoir and High Point.

Spiritual music is distinctly American.

The American Spiritual Ensemble takes the stage at Wingate University’s McGee Theatre on Jan. 26 at 8 p.m.—their second of two North Carolina stops over three days (Jan. 25 in Lenoir and Jan. 27 in High Point).

“Spirituals are about stories,” said ASE founder and music director Everett McCorvey, who is also the University of Kentucky’s director of Opera Theatre. “They are about stories of individual people, and a group of people. What’s interesting to me is that these stories still resonate today.”
McCorvey formed ASE to “keep the American Negro Spiritual alive” in 1995.

“I formed this group about 22 years ago as a way of sharing the messages and the stories of the American Negro Spirituals,” McCorvey said.
The genre grew out of American slavery and derived from the combination of European hymns and African musical elements brought to the Americas. While the spirituals emerged from the 1700s South, they are just as relevant in 2018 and will exist as long as there are stories to be told.
“It is the music from which several different American styles have formed,” McCorvey said.

Spirituals offered hope to enslaved Africans and generations of Americans in need of strength and encouragement.

“Of course, slavery is gone, but there are other forms of slavery that still exist,” McCorvey said. “People are enslaved to many things. Some to drugs, alcohol, abuse—there are a lot of enslavements. In some other countries, slavery is prevalent. What this music does through the words, through the melodies, is help all of the audiences to connect with something in the music that becomes inspirational—something that gives people hope and strength. We find that in this music.”

McCorvey still finds inspiration through the music, even after 22 years of touring around the world.

“I still find hope and inspiration in the beauty of these melodies, the arrangements and the beauty of the stories that these spirituals have to tell,” McCorvey said. “We are a country and a people that can achieve amazing things.”  

Highlighting the melodies remains a key component of ASE performances.

“There are over 6,000 spiritual melodies,” McCorvey said. “About 3,000 of those have been catalogued. What we do is take some of these melodies. We have fashioned them into beautiful choral arrangements, and we present that in our concerts.”

McCorvey noted people often confuse gospel with spirituals, which are not the same.

“A lot of people were not understanding the difference between gospel music and spirituals,” McCorvey said. “I call spirituals the music that got it all started—our whole American musical tradition. It’s a style of music that only America can lay claim to.”

He grew up in Montgomery, Alabama during the civil rights movement. His father, David McCorvey, 94, is a deacon at the historic First Baptist Church, where the Rev. Ralph Abernathy was pastor. It offered one of the largest sanctuaries in Montgomery at that time and often hosted leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. Their family history exposed Everett to spirituals at an early age.

“Martin Luther King lived only a few blocks from my home,” McCorvey said. “My parents were involved in the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King used to always use spirituals in his sermons and his speeches, because the words of the spirituals were prevalent, and apropos in the civil rights movement. We had these great choirs that came through in support of the civil rights movement.”

Traveling choirs from historically black schools such as Fisk's Jubilee Singers, Hampton's Concert Choir, Tuskegee's Golden Voices and Morehouse College's Glee Club performed in Montgomery.  Not only were they ambassadors for their schools, they fostered McCorvey’s lifelong love for the genre.

“They would sing at my father’s church, and at different events in Montgomery,” he said. “I heard spirituals at an early age, and they were so powerful, to me. It was a sound that I still remember, and it is a sound that I try to create with the American Spiritual Ensemble.”

On the Net:
www.americanspiritualensemble.com
http://battecenter.org/event  
http://everettmccorvey.com

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