Dr. Eva Jessye To Conduct Concert

Dr. Eva Jessye

Dr. Eva Jessye to conduct concert

Dr. Eva Jessye will conduct her first major Ann Arbor concert at 8 p.m. Thursday in Rackham Auditorium.

Under her direction, a choral ensemble of 19 singers from University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University will perform a program devoted to “The Spiritual: Celebration of Imagery, Rhythm, and Drama.” Narrator for the concert will be Willis Patterson, professor and chairman of voice at U-M. Accompaniment will be provided by Charles Lloyd, pianist; Luis Biava, cellist; David Thomas, trumpeter; and Kwasi Adounum, drummer.

The purpose of the concert, sponsored by the Eva Jessye Afro-American Music Collection of the U-M School of Music, is to share unusual and seldom-performed spirituals and to show their wide range of emotion and drama.

Interest in the concert is bound to focus, however, on Jessye herself. In 1935, she was hand-picked by George Gershwin to conduct the chorus for the first production of “Porgy and Bess.” She was associated with almost every professional production of this opera until 1958.

Her Original Dixie Jubilee Singers - later renamed the Eva Jessye Choir - were popular performers of stage and radio from the late 1920’s. They toured throughout the United States and Europe. With a repertoire of spirituals, work songs, mountain ballads, ragtime, jazz, and light opera, the group served as singers in numerous Broadways shows and musical motion pictures. Their first movie - King Vidor’s “Hallelujah,” produced by MGM in 1929 - broke a major color barrier: Dr. Jessye was the first black musical director of a film starring black actors. In 1963, the Eva Jessye Choir was designated by Dr. Martin Luther King as the official choir of the Civil Rights March on Washington.

Dr. Jessye is recognized as the first Black woman to win international distinction as a director of a professional choral group. She has been acclaimed as composer, conductor, writer, teacher, and actress.

At the age of 83, she is still working rings around most people. Early this year she was artist-in-residence at Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia, for the world premiere of her new work, “Chronicle of Job,” the familiar Bible story told through spirituals. This past September she was at Pittsburg State University in her native Kansas, where she cast, directed, and conducted her folk oratorio “Paradise Lost and Regained.”