Burleigh Society Concert at Carnegie Hall Praised for Performance, Promise
“A stinging rebuke to still-active demeaning stereotypes that cast black people as sassy, loud, and unrefined.” The Harry T. Burleigh Society concert, featuring the Fisk Jubilee Singers, earned critical acclaim from the Log Journal.
March 6, 2019
Photo by Sara Beth Turner
““Burleigh’s spiritual arrangements are artful and jewel-like, deftly weaving voices into a seamless texture [with] aching suspensions and rich, surprising dissonances…””
The March 2 Harry T. Burleigh Society concert at Carnegie Hall, featuring the Fisk Jubilee Singers, earned critical acclaim from the Log Journal.
“While it would technically be accurate to call the Jubilee Singers a college a cappella ensemble, the designation does not do them justice. They sing, with uncanny precision, in a plush bel canto style… It allowed for the haunting, otherworldly conclusion to In Bright Mansions. In a haloed murmur, the basses sang a repeating descending figure, lingering on each note that rubbed against the diaphanous held chord in the upper voices – a frisson of quiet ecstasy, a premonition of Heaven."
“Wade in the Water is…a pungent, brooding arrangement of a tune laced with buried, righteous anger. In the quiet, refined style of the Fisk Singers, it was hair-raising. Other songs affirmed the necessity of hope, promising Heaven as a release from literal bondage; Wade in the Water affirmed the necessity of justice, promising a reckoning far too long overdue.”