This concert, “Songs of Love and Justice”, was themed for Black History month, and featured soprano Maria Clark, pianist Trey Clegg, cellist Ismail Akbar, as well as Spelman English professor and poet Sharan Strange, and poetry reader and Spelman student Nadya Lopez.  It featured songs with music set to the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King composed by Adolphus Hailstork; African-American spirituals arranged by Dr. Maria Thompson Corley, which are featured on a recent CD release, Soul Sanctuary; and new new song cycles written by D.J. Sparr and Dr. Paula Grissom-Broughton.

This was a lecture-recital of sorts, with the composers’ prerecorded videos speaking about their own song cycles. A projector screen was utilized to show all video footage, which included footage created by Spelman students from the Spelman visual arts division.

The D.J. Sparr cycle is written to encourage hope in young African American males.  Dr. Paula Grissom-Broughton’s song cycle is a digital song cycle and winner of the Carnegie Mellon Award, which highlights the poetry of Dr. Sharan Strange, both or whom are Spelman Professors and collaborated on this project.  This song cycle explores the evolutionary experience of the African American female through girlhood, adolescence, and womanhood, with poetry readings interspersed throughout its musical performance. The concert ended with spirituals taken from the collaborative CD between Clark and Corley.