I am donating 50% of the fees from my arrangements of African American spirituals to the Hamilton-Garett Center for Music and Arts, a school committed to “the development of Boston’s next generation of innovative artists through the celebration and preservation of Black music”.
African American spirituals, sometimes called sorrow songs, are a backbone of American music. Gerami Groover-Flores, the artistic director of the Hamilton-Garett Center for Music and Arts, says, “The descendants of the people who created this music are still here and still alive, and even if we do not know the names of their ancestors or who the composer is, we can do our part in acknowledging the work that their ancestors have contributed to this body of music that we appreciate today.”
Peter Amidon