VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents their February Artful Thursday: To the Hills—Choral Spirituals,  February 17, 2011 at 6:30 PM, at the Caroline Wiess Law Building. 

Spirituals have been described as the “one articulate message” slaves gave to the world. Encapsulating the hopes and fears, dreams and beliefs that enabled many African Americans to survive the cruel realities of slavery, many early spirituals were based upon a back-and-forth exchange between a leader and the rest of the singers. By the 20thcentury, a more formal concert tradition began to evolve based on original slave melodies.

At the February Artful Thursday, members of the Houston Ebony Opera Guild Chorus, directed by Henry Washington, perform excerpts from their upcoming concert of African American spirituals, and Dr. Jason Oby moderates a panel discussion on the development of choral Spirituals from their earliest incarnations to the present with Dr. John Cornelius II, composer and pianist, Calvin Fuller, composer and organist, and Clyde Owen Jackson, conductor, spiritual researcher, and author.

This program is generously sponsored by the Houston Ebony Opera Guild and presented as the HEOG Annual Robert A. Henry Lecture, and Gala Concert Preview.

HEOG’s Annual African American Music Gala will take place at Christ Church Cathedral on February 26 and 27. Tickets are $25, and will be available during the reception following the Artful Thursday program—cash or check only.

Artful Thursdays are free and open to the public. A reception follows the program. Register to win great giveaways from KUHF 88.7 FM and the MFAH. Artful Thursday programs receive generous funding from the Rockwell Fund, Inc. Promotional support is generously provided by KUHF 88.7 FM, Houston Public Radio.

Refreshments generously provided by the Buffalo Speedway Starbucks (corner of Buffalo Speedway and Westpark), Carla Everett, manager, and the Rice Village Starbucks, Jenna Ortiz, manager.

Pictured:  John Biggers, Jubilee: Ghana Harvest Festival, 1959–63, tempera and acrylic on canvas. © John T. Biggers Estate/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. (detail above, full image below).