Biography
At the dawn of the 1870s Fisk University in Nashville confronted acute financial distress. Structures occupied since the school’s founding in 1866 stood in urgent need of renovation, instructors received meager wages, and student provisions grew steadily scarcer. To secure essential resources, a student vocal ensemble directed by treasurer and music instructor George L. White launched a benefit concert tour across the Midwest. Departing on October 8, 1871 with only one dollar of institutional funds, the singers returned seven months later carrying twenty thousand dollars—sufficient to clear the university’s debts and acquire Fort Gillen, the present campus site. Sailing for England in April 1873, the group collected more than fifty thousand dollars during a tour of Great Britain that lasted slightly longer than a year. Within their first seven years together the Fisk Jubilee Singers had raised over one hundred fifty thousand dollars for the university. More than a century afterward, the ensemble continued presenting its soulful singing to receptive listeners worldwide. Although early programs consisted of selections the singers themselves described as “white man’s music” together with a handful of “slave songs,” the Fisk Jubilee Singers steadily shifted focus toward Afro-American spirituals. Member Esther Jones observed, “The group has tried to maintain a spirituality and a closeness to God.” A succession of gifted directors has guided the ensemble. In 1956, under John W. Work III, the singers revisited Europe for fifty-four concerts in nine countries. Matthew W. Kennedy held the post during three separate periods—1972 to 1973, 1975 to 1983, and 1985 to 1986.
Singles