OA-Spring 2023

SACRED MUSIC FESTIVAL 2023 SMWC’s Department of Music and Theatre hosted a Sacred Music Festival featuring acclaimed guest soloist and Amercian bass-baritone, Marques Jerrell Ruff, a singer, conductor and scholar of Black music. The SMWC Band and musicians from the Terre Haute community performed, featuring new arrangements by Director Dr. John McIntyre and Ruff. SMWC Choirs, local high school singers and teachers, Director Michael Boswell and Ruff also presented sacred choral music with highlighed works written by Cecilia Clare Bocard, SP, ’26 . The festival concluded with Ruff presenting ‘The Evolution of the Negro Spiritual’ — a community discussion on the origins and development of the Negro spiritual from the period of enslavement to present day.

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