Celebrating African-American Choral Music at Tanglewood

Sunday, May 24, 2pm | Lenox, MA

Berkshire Choral International returns to Tanglewood for a Memorial Day Weekend concert at Ozawa Hall on May 24, with conductor Dr. André Thomas leading 130 singers through a program spanning spirituals, gospel, and works by African-American composers from the Harlem Renaissance through today.

Thomas spent 35 years teaching at Florida State University and two years at Yale, and has served as guest conductor for 48 of the 50 American All-State choirs, missing only Rhode Island and Delaware. He has led the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Radio Choir, the Netherlands Radio Choir, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, and the World Youth Choir, and has been recognized by the American Choral Directors Association with its highest honor, the Robert Shaw Award. He is also a published composer and author of Way Over in Beulah Lan': Understanding and Performing the Negro Spiritual.

The program is a curated survey of African-American choral music built around the work of composers who have often been left out of the standard canon. Works include spirituals and gospel songs alongside original compositions by Margaret Bonds and Florence Price, both of whom have seen significant critical reassessment in recent years, as well as pieces by William Dawson, Moses Hogan, and Rosephanye Powell. The concert closes with Thomas's own I Hear America Singing.

Berkshire Choral International runs intensive week-long residencies at Tanglewood throughout the summer, gathering singers from across the country for rehearsals at the Linde Center before a final concert at Ozawa Hall. The Memorial Day program draws 130 singers who spend four days rehearsing before the Sunday afternoon performance.

Seiji Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood, 297 West St., Lenox, MA.