inquire about Ella Sheppard?
My path to Ella Sheppard started with
one of her stunning
contemporaries, black feminist
journalist, novelist, uplift activist,
and former-concert soprano, Pauline
Hopkins. As editor of the Colored
American Magazine, Pauline
Hopkins covered the concerts of the
Fisk
Jubilee Singers, and she
eventually wrote a serialized
novel, the
lyrical, pan-Africanist epic
Of One Blood (1902-3) which traced
the
mystic trials and tribulations
of a fictional Jubilee singer. What
intrigued me most about
Hopkins’ writing was her passion for
the music
made by Ella
Sheppard and her fellow luminous
female vocalists who were
members of the first pioneering
troupe (women such as Maggie
Porter,
Jennie Jackson, Mabel
Lewis and America Robinson).
Hopkins championed
the virtuosic
complexities of these women’s
performances and their
ability to
move and sway white audiences
to advocate for black
enfranchisement in the face of
post-Reconstruction racial
backlash. The
kinds of questions
that I’ve been asking of the archive
have to do with
the quotidian
details of both Hopkins and
Sheppard’s respective craft.
How
might we imagine the nuances of
each woman’s aesthetic
preparation,
the rigor of each
artist's study and training—to
write, to compose, to
sing and
perform? Can we even imagine
how many hours went into
Sheppard’s rehearsals and
what those rehearsals entailed?
Can we
envision how many
composition drafts of
works-in-progress that she
produced? Can we conjure
in our minds the ways that
these women may have
sat
at their desks, their kitchen
tables, or on the couch in
their
parlors late into the
night making art to liberate
a people? The
intimate
artistic life (to borrow an
important formulation from
cultural
historian Saidiya
Hartman) of Ella Sheppard’s
sonic world is something
that we might ponder as
we celebrate her enduring
legacies.
More Than the Promise
of the American Myth:
Rethinking Burleigh
& Sheppard in the
Second Gilded Age
March 3rd, 2019
May Room - Weill Terrace
Room, Carnegie Hall
9am - 3pm
The Harry
T. Burleigh
Society's first academic
conference considers
Burleigh's
and Sheppard's
impact on the concert
spiritual genre, the
historiographic limits of
composer biography,
Black art music
aesthetics, and the
liberatory capabilities
within the work of
Burleigh,
Sheppard,
and their contemporaries.
Dr. Daphne Brooks
will deliver the
keynote
address. Other speakers
include Dr. Louise
Toppin, baritone
Kenneth Overton, Dr.
Crystal deGregory and
descendants of Burleigh
and
Sheppard.
Free and open to
Fisk Jubilee Singers®
Sing Harry T. Burleigh
Spirituals
March 2nd 2019
Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
7:30pm
The Harry T. Burleigh Society
and the Fisk Jubilee
Singers® join
in a
historic performance
celebrating Ella Sheppard
(1851–1915), an
original
Fisk Jubilee Singer, and
Harry T. Burleigh (1866–
1949), leaders
of the
concert spiritual
tradition. The Fisk
Jubilee Singers® will
perform the music
of these under-heard
cultural leaders, and
make calls for freedom.
Group ticket sales
are now available.
Call
the Carnegie
Group Sales office
during normal business
hours at (212)
903-9705 or
email them at
groupsales@
carnegiehall.org for
$25 tickets in groups
of 10 or more.
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