Detroit Free Press: 'four spirituals arranged with vivid imagination by the late Hale Smith. These were highlights of the morning.'

[Janice Chandler Eteme]

Detroit Free Press

Mark Stryker

Free Press Music Critic

March 17, 2012

“Spirituals featured at DSO's Classical Roots”

“Friday's concert began, as the Classical Roots programs always do, with the traditional 'Lift Every Voice and Sing.' The Brazeal Dennard Chorale, directed by Augustus Hill, then offered beautifully sung unaccompanied performances of three spirituals, with the sharply articulated 'Hush!' making a particularly strong impression

“Later, the DSO and Raphel were joined by soprano Janice Chandler Eteme for a set of four spirituals arranged with vivid imagination by the late Hale Smith. These were highlights of the morning: Eteme's deeply expressive and well-modulated soprano captured the bittersweet emotion and optimism at the heart of 'Jesus Lay Your Head in the Window,' 'This Light of Mine' and the others.

"On their own, Raphel also led the DSO through Smith's "By Yearning and By Beautiful," a highly concentrated miniature for string orchestra in a steely and abstract modernist idiom -- a reminder that black composers write in a broad a range of styles and not just vernacular-flavored styles that might be naively stereotyped as authentically black."

[The African American composer Hale Smith (1925-2009) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features a comprehensive Works List by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma, http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com]