The Friends of Music at St. Mary of the Hills Episcopal Church is sponsoring “Wake and Forget, Dream and Remember: A Concert in Honor of Black History Month” on Sunday, February 18 that 6 pm. The concert showcases a broad spectrum of music by black composers from the familiar spiritual Deep River to traditional settings of the Nunc dimmittis by Samuel Coleridge Taylor and Ave Mariaby Nathaniel Dett, as well as lesser-known music by Florence Price, Moses Hogan, and Harry Burleigh.
Artistic Director Thomas McNeil says the concert “will bring a genre of music not currently widely accessible locally.” McNeil calls them “songs of the oppressed and forgotten”, and says, “We have no greater purpose as musicians that to sing the songs that are not sung.”
McNeil is a Choral Music Education major at Appalachian State University. Soloists for the concert include Choral Scholars from the St. Mary’s choir, choristers from St. Mary’s and Appalachian State, and Marc Langlois, organist.
The concert will be in the nave of the church on Main Street in Blowing Rock. It is free and everyone is welcome. For more information, please call the church office at 828.295.7323, or follow us on Facebook @ MusicfromStMaryoftheHills.