The Town Hall's 29th Annual Black History Month Program
WELCOME & OPENING REMARKS
Melay Araya | Artistic Director, The Town Hall and Damien Sneed | Curator and Host
CHORAL FESTIVAL
Talent Unlimited High School
Concert Choir
Jayne Skoog, Director
Stuyvesant High School
Oratorio Choir
Liliya Shamazov, Director
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts
Gospel Choir and Band
Roslyn White, Director
TJ Walker, Assistant Director
FESTIVAL FINALE
“Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” Joint Ensemble
Talent Unlimited High School
Concert Choir
Stuyvesant High School
Oratorio Choir
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts
Gospel Choir and Band
Produced by:
Education Programs Liaison, The Town Hall
Ifemi Quinones
Associate Director Of Artistic Programming, The Town Hall
Rinesty Rusli
Welcome,
Welcome to Black History Month at the Town Hall – a time for celebration, remembrance, and committed action. You are sitting in a very storied hall, where for over one hundred years, activists, artists, poets, and politicians have shared their gifts and ideas in hopes of a better world. Langston Hughes, Coretta Scott King, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Stokely Carmichael, Barack Obama, Whitney Houston, and others have stood upon the very stage which your peers will perform this morning.
For over two decades, Town Hall has invited students, school staff, and educational organizations from the greater New York City area to participate as performers and audience members in the annual Black History Month program. This programming has provided free access for students to the arts and arts education, fostering appreciation, recognition, and participation in the foundational legacy of Black people’s creative contributions across time. In past years, the Town Hall’s Black History Month programming explored Black contributions in modern dance, poetry, bluegrass, classical music, and more. This year, the Town Hall’s Black History Month program returns as a celebration of Black choral music for the second year in a row.
The Town Hall Black History Month Choral Festival features choirs from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts Gospel Choir and Band, Stuyvesant High School Oratorio Choir, and Talent Unlimited High School Concert Choir. This festival serves as a tool for students to learn the importance of Black choral music in the development of modern vocal music, and the reach of the contributions of Black composers and Black musical traditions not only in the history of the United States, but in the history of music worldwide.
Your friends and peers are performing choral music from some of the most important Black composers in history in a program curated and directed by award winning composer and multi-disciplinary artist Damien Sneed. They will make their Town Hall debuts today–as Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone did decades ago–Maestro Sneed guiding them, you cheering on, and with the ancestors who graced this hall smiling from above.
Let us take this time to reflect on the ways that art and music can shape our minds and lives, and commit ourselves to embracing imagination. Imagination for reshaping the world to fit all of the possibilities of what everyone has to offer. We need only to accept our differences, connect our similarities, and act as the many voices of a chorus, different notes creating one harmony.
Welcome to Black History Month at The Town Hall. We’re so honored to host you.
Melay Araya & Ifemi Quiñones
Artistic Director and Education Programs Liaison
The Town Hall
“Lift
Ev’ry Voice and Sing”
James Weldon Johnson (1871 – 1938)
Often referred to as “The Black National Anthem,” Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing was a hymn written as a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson in 1900. His brother, John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954), composed the music for the lyrics. A choir of 500 schoolchildren at the segregated Stanton School, where James Weldon Johnson was principal, first performed the song in public in Jacksonville, Florida, to celebrate President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.
At the turn of the 20th century, Johnson’s lyrics eloquently captured the solemn yet hopeful appeal for the liberty of Black Americans. Set against the religious invocation of God and the promise of freedom, the song was later adopted by NAACP and prominently used as a rallying cry during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Talent Unlimited High School Concert Choir
Battle Of Jericho
Arr. Moses G. Hogan (1957 – 2003)
Children, Go Where I Send Thee
Arr.: Kevin Phillip Johnson, Rap Crafted by Ayana Davis
Soloists: Judith Avila Blyden & Rachel LeMarque
Run To You
Arr. Pentatonix (aka. Mitchell Grassi, Scott Hoying, Avi Kaplan, Kirstie Maldonado, Kevin Olusola, Benjamin Bram)
Piano: Joaquin Berrio | Djembe: Olivia De Lulla
Conductor/Director: Jayne Skoog
Stuyvesant High School
Oratorio Choir
City Called Heaven
arr. Josephine Poelinitz (b. 1942)
Soloist: Tahlia Jamir
Music Down in My Soul
Arr. Moses G. Hogan (1957 – 2003)
Piano Accompanists: Albert Shen & Uri Lubetzky
Conductor/Director: Liliya Shamazov
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts Gospel Choir and Band
Jesus Promised
Arr. Chicago Mass Choir (estd. 1988)
Awesome God
Arr. JJ Hairston & Youthful Praise (estd. 1991)
Accompanists: LaGuardia high School for the Arts Gospel Band
Conductor/Director: Roslyn White | Assistant/Music Director: TJ Walker
Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing
James Weldon Johnson (1871 – 1938)
Lift every voice and sing, Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies, Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast’ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat, Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered. We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, Out from the gloomy past, Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way; Thou who hast by Thy might, Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee, Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee; Shadowed beneath Thy hand, May we forever stand, True to our God, True to our native land.
Damien Sneed
Curator / Host
As a multi-genre recording artist and instrumentalist, Damien LeChateau Sneed is a pianist, vocalist, organist, composer, conductor, arranger, producer, and arts educator whose work spans multiple genres. He has worked with jazz, classical, pop, and R&B legends, including the late Aretha Franklin and Jessye Norman, Wynton Marsalis, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Ashford & Simpson, Jennifer Holliday, Denyce Graves, Lawrence Brownlee, and many others. In addition, Sneed has served as music director for several Grammy Award–winning gospel artists, including The Clark Sisters, Richard Smallwood, Donnie McClurkin, Hezekiah Walker, Marvin Sapp, Karen Clark Sheard, and Kim Burrell, among others, and BET’s hit gospel competition, Sunday Best Season 4. Sneed is a 2014 Sphinx Medal of Excellence recipient, a 2020 Dove Award winner, and a 2021 NAACP Image Award winner for his work as a featured producer and writer on the Clark Sisters’ project, The Return. Sneed recently joined the esteemed faculty of Howard University and the Juilliard School. His other professional affiliations have included the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music, Berklee School of Music, Michigan State University, the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University, Nyack College, and the City University of New York (CUNY). In 2015, he established the Damien Sneed Foundation Performing Arts Institute. Sneed is the founder and artistic director of Chorale Le Chateau, that has gained a global reputation for vividly interpreting vocal literature, from Renaissance period pieces to art songs to jazz, spirituals, gospel, and avant-garde contemporary music. Sneed is featured in the award-winning PBS documentary Everyone Has a Place starring Wynton Marsalis, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and Sneed’s own Chorale Le Chateau, which captures Sneed’s journey as musical conductor of the historic tour performances of Marsalis’s Abyssinian Mass.
He has released several projects on his boutique label, LeChateau Earl Records, established in 2009 to reflect his varied musical interests. Some of Sneed’s
commissions as a composer include Empower (2018) by Lyric Opera of Chicago; Marian’s Song (2019) by Houston Grand Opera; “The Earth Sings” (2021) by the ASCAP Kingsford Commission; the film score for Testament (2021) by Alvin Ailey Dance Theater; The Tongue and the Lash (2022) by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (OTSL); and Treemonisha (2023) also by OTSL, a reimagined adaptation of Scott Joplin’s opera.
As conductor, he has debuted with the Flint Symphony Orchestra, Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Stockton Symphony Orchestra, Gateways Music Festival Chamber Players, Harlem Chamber Players Orchestra, and his own ensemble, Orchestra
of Tomorrow. Sneed was a featured as a vocal soloist on a new PBS documentary featuring Marsalis’ All Rise Symphony for Chautauqua’s 150th which premiered on February 11, 2025. He was recently signed to Apple Music Classical & Platoon Records (London). His newest recording project, Our Song, Our Story, featuring Metropolitan Opera singers Jacqueline Echols McCarley and Justin Austin, along with the Griot String Quartet and Sneed on piano, will be released Spring 2025 while his second project with Apple Music, Kaleidoscope, featuring the solo piano music of African American composers, will be released in Winter 2025.
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts Gospel Choir and Band
Roslyn White, Director | TJ Walker, Music Director
GOSPEL CHOIR
Gabriella Agosto
Haven Alexander
Cameron Anniki
Juliette Bäcker
Crystal Bennett
Ornella Bila
Libee BoBo
Ella Briggs
Milena Broesche-Jones
Jamari Burrowes-Davis
Andrew Carrington
Damon Craig
Kaylee Dadaille
Zadia Rose Danon
Jasper Davenport
Jewel Davis *
Sarah De Guzman
Dominic Dias
Tayden Eagle-Mcavoy
Djahlisa Fenelon
Tom Garber
Jeremiah Garcia
Calvin Gentry
Tristan Glover
Raileen Gomez
Sebastian Gonzalez
Jazmine Guaba
Joshua Hernandez
Pauleen Iris Hortelano
Elianna Johnson
Gabrielle Johnson
Alexandria Jones **
Ekaterine Kabanashvili
Rachel Kim
Dylan Klein
Dea Krliu
Laila Lawrence
Jaylen Lewis
Daniel Lombardo
Zara Malik
Moises Matos
Nibiru Mcintosh
Kayla McMahon
Hailey Mendez
Jaevon Mines-Evans
Ethan Nicholas
Amy Nicolas ‡
Damiah Nolasco
Jonas Nweke
Evie Oneil
Daphne Papageorge
Robin Phillips
Aliana Polanco
Belle Pressley
Desirae Ribeiro
Khalil Richardson
Jazlyn Richey
Isabella Rivas
Matthew Rodriguez
Avaree Salas
Kai Wayuu Sanchez Warner
Isabella Santiago
Nicole Shmeriga
Elise Silva **
Ionnie Small
Symphony Smith
Nick Strutinskiy
Asa Sulton **
Sara Tecle
Arielle Tien
Loy Tolentino
Jeremy Trotman
Grace Vasquez
Brandon Vazquez
Junelle Marie Virtusio
Josiah Williams
Jayson Wright
Carmen Yager
GOSPEL BAND
CLARINET
Amina Raquel Brown
Denae Reyes
ALTO SAXOPHONE
Valentina Alvaro
Gregory Knott
TRUMPET
Adam Brazzley
Remi Davis
Emmanuel Sanchez-Flores
TROMBONE
Joshua Antoine
Valerie Martinez
Assatta Thomas
GUITAR
Maya Felix
Dante Tejerina
KEYBOARD
Jameson Knable
BASS
Lila Hone
Zahrah Kaikini
Zaki Ratcliffe **
PERCUSSION
Riley Glasper
Jaden Griffin
Chloe Landin
**Student Director
‡President
* Vice President
Stuyvesant High School Oratori0 Choir
Liliya Shamazov, Conductor/Director
Risa Aarlev
Sameeha Alam
Yash Balkaran
Mia Basith
Calliope Cambanis
Margaret Castiglia
Kemal Cater
Jason Chan
Elizabeth Chao
Miranda Chen
Millicent Chen
Elizabeth Chen
Ankea Cheuk
Kristen Chou
Rio Deleon
Yahli Efraim
Aydan Ferrao
Henry Grace
Amanda Greenberg
Hannah Grimskog-Tran
Sara Gulati
Julian Han
Richard He
Eleanor Huang
Nancy Huang
Tahlia Jamir
Nathan Jea
Zinnia Jones-Chen
Lucille Jun
Grace Jung
Sonam Kanaujia
Lina Kim
Troye Kim
Talia Kozitsky
William Lake
Stephanie Lam
Nathan Lam
Sofia Lawrence
Nayoung Lee
Aurelia Lei
Ennya Liang
Hilda Liang
Han Chen Lin
Kevin Lin
Campbell Lindberg
Max Liu
Angelina Lu
Caleb Lu
Uri Lubetzky
Anna Lyzhyn
Phon Myat Mo
Sarah Mo
Faith Mtui
Emma Musyuk
Jane No
Konstantine Okon
Henry Orenstein
Archana Ovitigala
Alison Ren
Katherine Rubakha
Stella Santos Hendricks
Albert Shen
Mia Shi
Vicky Shi
Marlee Sidor
Elina Siu
Claire Stansberry
Valli Subramanian
Benjamin Tabnick
Chloe Tam
Ethan Tan
Markus Tan
Olivia Tong
Rachel Uvaydov
Kayla Wang
Liam Wang
Keilani Wang Lee
Anita Wei
Angelina Weng
Teo Woodward
Wilson Xu
Andy Yao
Sarah Yu
Prince Zheng
Talent Unlimited High School Concert Choir
Jayne Skoog, Conductor/Director:
SOPRANO I
Melanie Cardenas-Andra
Zoe Cotto
Abrianna Figueroa
Jupiter Flores
Madison Francis
Aniya Read
Laila Steele
SOPRANO II
Melissa Agyemang
Helen Alvarez
Leila Berga
Ava Castro
Melanie Cortes
Tiffany Cruz
Lizbeth Cruz
Kaelyn Green
Sheniece Holness
Lyric Outlaw
Alibeth Quintero-Blanca
Lindsay Salas Xaltipa
Yanelisse Taveras
Kathryn Weiss
ALTO I
Vayca Assad
Diaraye Bah
Skyla Cappello
Kayley (Rose) Farez
Anahi Flores
Ella Garcia
Leilani Geigel
Addison Geiss
Kamaya (Athena)
Harrison
Katherine Hernandez
Lesly Leyva
Lexy Leyva
Leah Martinez
Maribel Miller
Marley Reyman
Crystal Rodriguez
Harley Rosas Cano
ALTO II
Judith Avila Blyden
Tenzin Desang
Jannieya Jones
Rachel Lemarque
Binerva Mercedes
Isabelli Sucuzhanay
Serenity Young
Chahira Zoure
TENOR
Joaquin Berrio
Noel Conde
Fernando Morales
BASS
Jean Fiallos Garcia
Keith Soto
William Tolson
Conner Soukhaseum
DJEMBE
Olivia De Lulla
Composer Spotlight
Roland Carter
Distinguished composer, conductor, educator, and pianist, Roland Carter is the Ruth S. Holmberg Professor of American Music in the Department of Music at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC). His accomplishments as a leading figure in the choral arts include concerts with major choruses and orchestras in prestigious venues nationwide; as well as lectures, workshops, and master classes. From presidential inaugurations to the smallest church, from scholarly presentations for national gatherings of musicians, educators, and preservationists to private coaching with individual singers, Mr. Carter lends his keen ear, bright mind, and talented hands to projects of every sort.
Carter is especially noted as an authority on the performance and preservation of African American music, having produced and appeared on programs for national and international radio and television networks in support of these aims. He is founder and CEO of Mar-Vel, a music publisher specializing in the music of African American Composers and traditions. Carter has directed the Chattanooga Choral Society for the Preservation of African American Song for 19 years, and served as music advisor and principal guest conductor of the Houston Ebony Opera Guild, Houston, TX for twelve years.
Unquestionably a gifted composerarranger, it is Carter’s arrangement of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” that is most often used to present the anthem in formal settings. His arrangements and settings have and continue to be performed by orchestras and choirs throughout the world. A colleague of his once shared her belief that the angels sat upon his shoulders and whispered the score for his arrangement of the spiritual, In Bright Mansions Above
Harry T. Burleigh
Harry Thacker Burleigh played a significant role in the development of American art song, having composed over two hundred works in the genre. He was the first African-American composer acclaimed for his concert songs as well as for his adaptations of African-American spirituals. In addition, Burleigh was an accomplished baritone, a meticulous editor, and a charter member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP).
Harry Burleigh was a dedicated church musician throughout his life, beginning as a young man in Erie, where he sang in the choirs of the Cathedral of St. Paul’s, the Park Presbyterian Church, and the Reform Jewish Temple. Burleigh was able to hold multiple paid positions at once since the choirs performed on a staggered schedule. However, Burleigh’s passion for music extended beyond the sacred. In his late teens, he was so determined to hear a salon recital by Hungarian pianist Rafael Joseffy at the home of local music lover and his mother’s sometimes employer, Elizabeth Russell, he stood outside in the snow to listen and became ill.
In 1894, Burleigh auditioned for the post of soloist at St. George’s Episcopal Church of New York. To the consternation of the congregation, which objected because Burleigh was African American, he was given the position. However, through his talent and dedication (he held the appointment for over fifty years, missing only one performance during his tenure), Burleigh won the hearts and the respect of the entire church community.
Moses Hogan
Moses George Hogan, born in New Orleans, Louisiana on March 13, 1957, was a pianist, conductor and arranger of international renown. A graduate of the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) and Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio, he also studied at New York’s Juilliard School of Music and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Mr. Hogan’s many accomplishments as a concert pianist included winning first place in the prestigious 28th annual Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Competition in New York. Hogan was recently appointed Artist In Residence at Loyola University in New Orleans. Hogan began his exploration of the choral music idiom in 1980. Hogan’s former New Orleans based Moses Hogan Chorale received international acclaim.
The Moses Hogan Singers made their debut in 1998 on the EMI record label with the acclaimed soprano Barbara Hendricks. Hogan was commissioned to arrange and perform several compositions for the 1995 PBS Documentary, THE AMERICAN PROMISE, whose soundtrack was released separately by Windham Hill records under the title VOICES
Hogan served as editor of the new Oxford Book of Spirituals, an expansive collection of spirituals, published by Oxford University Press. Hogan’s contemporary settings of spirituals, original compositions and other works have been revered by audiences and praised by critics including Gramophone magazine. With over 70 published works, Hogan’s arrangements have become staples in the repertoires of high school, college, church, community and professional choirs worldwide.
Florence Price
Florence Beatrice Price was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on 9 April 1887. She began learning music from her mother at an early age and gave her first piano performance at age four, reportedly publishing a composition (now lost) at age eleven. She graduated high school at the age of sixteen and in that same year was accepted into the New England Conservatory (Boston), then as one of the most prestigious musical academies in the U.S.
Florence Beatrice (Smith) Price became the first black female composer to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra when Music Director Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra played the world premiere of her Symphony No. 1 in E minor on June 15, 1933, on one of four concerts presented at The Auditorium Theatre from June 14 through June 17 during Chicago’s Century of Progress Exposition. The historic June 15th concert entitled “The Negro in Music” also included works by Harry T. Burleigh, Roland Hayes, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and John Alden Carpenter performed by Margaret A. Bonds, pianist and tenor Roland Hayes with the orchestra. Florence Price’s symphony had come to the attention of Stock when it won first prize in the prestigious Wanamaker Competition held the previous year.
Undine Smith Moore
Born on August 25, 1904, in Jarratt, VA, the “Dean of Black Women Composers” Undine Smith Moore was an AfricanAmerican music educator and composer. She was the granddaughter of slaves and took to the piano at a young age. Her post-secondary education began at historically Black college Fisk University where she studied piano, organ, and music theory, earning her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1926. From there, she obtained her Master of Arts at Columbia University Teachers College in 1931. Additionally, Moore studied at the Juilliard, Manhattan, and Eastman Schools of Music, and was notably the first Fisk graduate to receive a scholarship to Juilliard.
Moore’s career started in North Carolina public schools as a supervisor of music programs. She later went on to Virginia State College where she held the position of professor of music theory and composition for more than four decades. During her time at Virginia State, she co-founded and co-directed the university’s Black Music Center. The mission of this center was to promote appreciation of music by black individuals in America through performance and study of music.
Throughout her lifetime, Moore received honors and awards for her musical accomplishments, such as the Virginia Governor’s Award in the Arts, National Association of Negro Musicians Distinguished Achievement Award, Candace Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, and honorary doctorates from Virginia State College and Indiana University. Despite these prestigious recognitions for her compositions, Moore always thought of herself as an educator first, calling herself “a teacher who composes, rather than a composer who teaches.”
John W. Work III
John Wesley Work III was a noted composer, educator, choir director, and musicologist, remembered especially for his work as a folk song collector specializing in African American spirituals. Work hailed from a musical family. His grandfather was a church music director in the Nashville area. His father taught at Fisk University in Nashville and also collected many African American spirituals, including “Go Tell It on the Mountain.”
Work received his early education at Fisk University. After receiving his B.A. from Fisk in 1923, he attended the Institute of Musical Art in New York City (now the Juilliard School). He later received a M.A. in 1930 from Columbia, and a B.Mus from Yale in 1933.
After graduating, Work taught at Fisk University from 1927 until his retirement in 1967. Throughout his career, he undertook several projects to study and record African American folk songs and spirituals. In one such project he collaborated with colleagues at Fisk University to record music of the Mississippi River Delta for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress. Blues musician Muddy Waters was first recorded as part of this study.
Work was an active composer throughout his life. Though his output spans a variety of styles, his largest contribution was to choral and vocal solo music. Several of these compositions were arrangements based on the African American spirituals and folk songs he collected as part of his research. Galaxy Music Corporation published a number of his arrangements in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, and many of these publications remain popular with choirs and soloists today.
Adolphus C. Hailstork III
Acclaimed composer, pianist, and conductor Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork III, who has penned more than 250 works, was born in 1941 and grew up in Albany, New York.
Dr Hailstork studied violin, piano, organ, and voice and was in the Choir of Men and Boys at the Albany Cathedral of all Saints. In 1959, he graduated from Albany High School, where he began composing. Hailstork studied music theory and composition with the renowned opera composer Mark Fax at Howard University in Washington, DC, and received a Bachelor of Music degree in 1963. Upon graduating, he traveled to France, after which he studied piano and composition at the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau with Nadia Boulanger. When he returned to the United States, he enrolled in the Manhattan School of Music, studying with Vittorio Giannini NS received a second Bachelor of Music degree in 1965 and Master of Music degree there in 1966. Continuing his studies in Music Composition at Michigan State University, and on the music faculty, Hailstork earned the Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1971.
His numerous works for chorus, solo voice, piano, organ, chamber ensemble, band, orchestra, and opera have been played across the country by major orchestras conducted by James de Priest, Paul Freeman, Daniel Barenboim, Kurt Masur, Lorin Maazel, and JoAnn Falletta, among others.
Notable early compositions include Celebration, recorded by the Detroit Symphony in 1976; Out of the Depths (1977), and American Guernica (1983), are two band works which won national competitions. In 1979, Hailstork wrote Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed, a lament for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Chineke Orchestra, a London-based majority Black and Asian orchestra under the baton of the African American Hispanic conductor Kalena Bovell, premiered it in 2020. Consort Piece (1995) commissioned by the Norfolk (Va.) Chamber Ensemble, was awarded first prize by the University of Delaware Festival of Contemporary Music. His opera Joshua’s Boots was commissioned by the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and the Kansas City Lyric Opera and premiered simultaneously in 1999.
Josephine Poelinitz
Other than some minor personal details, and a penchant for New Agey, homeopathic posts on her Facebook page, all we really know about Josephine Poelinitz is that she was an Elementary Resource Specialist with Chicago Public Schools, and long-time Director of the All-City Elementary Youth Chorus in Chicago.
Poelinitz’s arrangement of Mahalia Jackson’s sorrow song “City Called Heaven” seems to be - and no amount of digging around the internet could prove otherwiseher only contribution to printed music. That being said, it’s a heck of a first and apparently last effort, as the hundreds of recordings available testify to.
Brandon Waddles
As a conductor, composer, pianist, and educator, Brandon Waddles enjoys a multifaceted career spanning the musical gamut. Brandon, a Detroit native, holds a B.A. in Music from Morehouse College (Atlanta, GA) and M.M. from Westminster Choir College of Rider University (Princeton, NJ). He earned his Ph.D. in Music Education with a Choral Conducting emphasis at Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL). Before pursuing his doctorate, he served on the Conducting and Sacred Music faculty at Westminster as conductor of the Westminster Jubilee Singers.
Brandon’s choral compositions and arrangements have been published and performed by choral ensembles around the world, including the Morehouse College and University of Michigan Glee Clubs, Oakwood Aeolians, Westminster Choir, Brigham Young University Singers and the Slovenian Philharmonic Choir. In 2019, he was awarded as the inaugural recipient of the ACDA Diverse Voices Collaborative Grant. In addition, he has worked as a transcriber of Black gospel music for numerous choral octavos, hymnals and hymnal supplements published by GIA, including his recent work as a contributing editor for the One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism hymnal. Brandon recently released Just In Case You’ve Forgotten, the first selected compendium of works by the late Thomas Whitfield, the subject of his dissertation. Brandon has also served on the staffs of various music ministries throughout the country, including Hartford Memorial Baptist Church (Detroit, MI), the Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church (Atlanta, GA), Abyssinian Baptist Church (Harlem, New York City, NY), and First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens (Somerset, NJ), to name a few. He most recently served as Director of Music at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church (Tallahassee, FL).
Brandon has been blessed to work with a diverse array of musicians including Dalton Baldwin, Martin Katz, Angela Brown, George Shirley, Donnie Ray Albert, Vinson Cole, Fred Hammond, Kathy Taylor, Anita Wilson and Chrystal Rucker. He currently serves as Musical Director for Ledisi.
J.J. Hairston & Youthful Praise
Youthful Praise and worship leader, James “J.J.” Hairston, have both traveled the world, ministered the gospel and garnered national and international recognition. Through their career, YP has set a new standard for the “church choir” and have no signs of slowing down. With 17 years in the ministry, YP has undoubtedly learned to trust what God has done and will continue to do for them.
Founded in 1992, the 35-member choir was birthed out of their home church. Cathedral of Praise in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where the group remains as one of the church’s choirs. As their ministry grew they began singing background for artists such as Destiny’s Child, Pastor Shirley Caesar and SWV, to name a few.
Currently Hairston writes, produces and leads YP, although in his youth he did not imagine himself in such a position. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, Hairston spent most of his time at Mt. Sinai Cathedral COGIC where his grandfather Bishop C.L. Sexton was the pastor and his mother served as choir director. J.J. would watch daily as the ministry was laid before him, but never thought he would follow in his mother’s footsteps. Soon after his family moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, J.J. was struck with a tragedy as a good friend was shot and killed. At that point, Hairston made a decision to make a change in his life and began directing the Central High School Gospel Choir, subsequently joining YP.
After years of singing in the choir, Hairston became co-director of YP alongside Shawn Brown. When Brown left YP to become a pastor, Hairston stepped into the position as director. Already co-writing, arranging and producing many of the songs, Hairston took his responsibilities and continued developing the signature sound that people have grown to love from YP.
He and his choir Youthful Praise continue to travel extensively due to the huge success of songs that J.J. has written or co- written including his current Billboard chart-topping song, “Resting on Promise,” his hit worship song, “Lord You’re Mighty,” and of course, Youthful Praise’s groundbreaking song, “Incredible God - Incredible Praise.”
P.10: Gia Publications, giamusic.com/artists/roland-carter
P.11: Library Of Congress, loc.gov/item/n83127097/h-t-burleigh/
P.12: Friends of Moses Hogan Society, moseshogan.com/about_moses_hogan.htm
P.13: Dr. Michael J. Cooper Editor, collected works of Florence B. Price (New York: G. Schirmer), Historical Dictionary of Romantic Music (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow,2013), florenceprice.com/biography/
P.14: Music By Women,musicbywomen.org/composer/undine-smith-moore/
P.16: The New York Choral Society, nychoral.org/adolphus-hailstork/
P.17: All American Entertainment (AAE), https://www.allamericanspeakers.com/ celebritytalentbios/J.J.+Hairston/390985
P.18: Gia Publications, giamusic.com/artists/brandon-waddles
P.19: Bel Canto Singers of Fredericton, https://www.belcanto.ca/josephine-poelinitz
Partners & Supporters of Today’s Program
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
Charles Fleischman Charitable Trust
Edythe Kenner
Rea Charitable Trust
Special Thanks:
Council Speaker Julie Menin
Talent Unlimited High School
Stuyvesant High School
Laguardia HIgh School for the Arts
Benjamin Schott
Seung Yu
Ifemi Quiñones
Rinesty Rusli
Ebony Vines
Alex Koveos
Leia-lee Doran
Johnny Green and Crew
Town Hall Administration and Staff
The Town Hall Board of Directors
The Town Hall’s Annual Black History Month Program is made possible, in part, by the Commissioner Laurie Cumbo and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the New York City Council
Town Hall’s Programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature
About The Historic Town Hall
The Town Hall’s mission is to provide affordable world-class entertainment by new and established artists to a diverse audience; to inspire the youth of our community to appreciate and participate in the arts at The Town Hall and in schools through our Education Outreach Program; and to preserve and enhance The Town Hall as a historic landmark venue for the enjoyment and cultural enrichment of generations to come.
Since 1997 the Town Hall has invited students from the greater New York City area to participate in an annual Black History Month program. The program serves as a tool for students to learn the importance and contributions of Black and African American music traditions and their contributions to the musical history and legacy of the United States.
