by Dani Norton
Staff writer
The Southeastern Chorale, under the direction of Dr. Stacy Weger, professor, chair and director of Choral Activities, presented “Changed My Name: A Concert Inspired by the Music and Journey of an Enslaved People” on Nov. 10, .
Dr. Randy Prus, professor and chair of the Department of English, Humanities and Languages, prefaced the concert with a lecture about the presence of slavery in America and its effects.
Featured soloists included students Essie Jefferson, Logan Russell and Aaron Williams, as well as faculty members Dr. Jammieca Mott, Dr. Sarah Griffiths and Jeremy Blackwood.
Weger said that he was very excited to have Prus provide the framework in which the music operated. Prus has published two articles on Frederick Douglass and his involvement in the advocacy of Civil Rights during Reconstruction and the subsequent disenfranchisement and lynching of African Americans by the 1890s. This work forms the background of the American Literature to 1895 class he regularly teaches. When Weger began searching within the Department of English, Humanities and Languages for someone with knowledge of race and slavery, Prus volunteered. The lecture detailed the trials and accomplishments of such historical figures as W.E.B. Du Bois, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth and their influence on black culture as well as American culture in general.
“In part, the introduction was meant to provide a context for the music by examining how racial slavery informed western thinking, particularly the American experience. The main issue is how race is deeply ingrained in the American Imagination, most notably in its music,” Prus said.
The music presented in the concert was the result of traditional African spirituals merging with music from European-based churches. According to the concert’s program notes, that result was so powerful, it is the place where all American music has found its roots since. The songs featured included familiar pieces such as “Go Down Moses” and “Deep River.”
The concert’s finale was, as Weger noted, a largely experimental process for the chorale. “Changed My Name” featured Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, played by Mott and Jefferson respectively, delivering a series of monologues about their roles as abolitionists during the Civil War and before. The monologues were interwoven with bits of African spirituals, culminating in a final performance of “I’m Goin’ Through.”
“There are those instances in which music can define a culture, create identity and raise the consciousness of a whole,” the program notes for the concert stated, and one student in attendance found that experience to be particularly personal.
Joyce Butler is a senior English major whose great-grandfather was brought to America on a slave ship. The event inspired her to write a piece of prose in which she describes her reaction to the concert.
“The lecture combined with the music hit a nerve that sent a thread of guilt, shame, peace and hope in the form of an emotion I had never felt before,” she wrote. Butler said that hearing the lecture in conjunction with the music caused her to finally recognize the connection between her ancestors and herself that she had, until now, taken “with a grain of salt.”