Talk and Performance Featuring Music of the Black Church at St. Lawrence
St. Lawrence University and the Ken Okoth ’01 Black American Music Project will welcome Cory Hunter to campus for an interactive workshop titled “The Music of the Black Church” on Friday, February 27, at 7 p.m. in the Peterson-Kermani Performance Hall.
The event is free and open to the public.
Hunter, who holds a dual appointment as the James P. Wilmot Distinguished Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Rochester and Assistant Professor of Musicology at Eastman School of Music, specializes in African American popular music, with a specific focus in Black gospel music.
Hunter’s work is deeply interdisciplinary, intersecting with musicological and ethnomusicological studies, voice studies, media studies, ritual theory, religious studies, gender and sexuality studies, and performance studies.
“It’s going to be a little different than a pure performance,” says Assistant Professor of Music and Coordinator of the Ken Okoth ’01 Black American Music Project Fritz Schenker.
“Hunter is going to be telling us about the connections between spirituals and the music of the Black church,” Schenker adds, “but he’ll also do some singing to demonstrate that, and he wants to get the audience involved to sing with him and experience for themselves these elements of Black music.”
While at St. Lawrence, Hunter will visit with students in two classes. The first is a First-Year Seminar called “Selling Out: Music and Capitalism,” which Schenker says deals largely with the commercial tensions between ideas of artistry and commercialism of gospel music. The second course Hunter will attend is “Music and Race,” where Hunter will lead the class discussion.
“I’m excited to bring Hunter to campus because he has a long history as a performer of this type of music, but he also brings the perspective of a scholar who is used to engaging with undergraduate students,” Schenker says.
The residency is supported by the Ken Okoth '01 Black American Music Project, which brings to campus a series of visual displays, lectures, seminars, and live performances that explore the history and origins of Black music and the influence of Black American musical traditions on the world. Generously funded by an anonymous donor, the Project honors the legacy of Ken Okoth '01, a beloved friend of many Laurentians whose love of music was exemplified in his performances with the Laurentian Singers and the Singing Saints.
