Wade in the Water
Traditional Spiritual; arr. Moses Hogan, ed. John Purifoy

Wade in the Water is a Negro spiritual tightly associated with the Underground Railroad. The verses of the song referring to the Israelites’ escape out of Egypt as found in Exodus 14 are a clear metaphor for the hopes of the slaves trying to find freedom. In particular, Harriet Tubman used the song “Wade in the Water” to tell escaping slaves to get off the trail and into the water to make sure that the dogs employed by slavers lost their trail. The song was first performed in a concert setting by the Fisk Jubilee Singers at the turn of the 20th century. In modern times, many choral aficionados would recognize this arrangement as the handiwork of American composer Moses Hogan (1957–2003), best known for his settings of black spirituals.

Summertime (from "Porgy and Bess")
George Gershwin, DuBose & Dorothy Heyward, Ira Gershwin; arr. Russell Robinson

Next to the Beatles’ Yesterday, Gershwin’s Summertime is probably the most copied, covered, and recorded song in history. George Gershwn (1898–1937) composed this aria in the style of an African-American folk song for use in his controversial 1935 opera Porgy and Bess, which dealt with the plight of black Americans in the early 1920s. The song has gone on to become a jazz standard, having been covered by such notable musicians as Ella Fitzgerald, Mahalia Jackson, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie.

Alexis Butler & Olivia Reitano, duet

Poor Wayfaring Stranger
Traditional Spiritual; arr. Victor C. Johnson

The song Poor Wayfaring Stranger comes from the African-American spiritual tradition. Songs like this one were sung in the fields while the slaves worked. Some songs actually served as coded messages referring to an opportunity to escape (via the Underground Railroad). These songs were disguised as songs about Heaven, but often they were truly about the freedom found in the North.

The Ballad of Harry T. Moore
Bernice Johnson Reagon

Born in 1905 and raised all across Florida, Harry T. Moore was an educator turned political activist in a time when doing so was to risk one’s life. An intelligent man, after earning the nickname “Doc” in high school, Moore went on to graduate college at the age of nineteen and become a teacher at the only black elementary school in Cocoa, Florida. In 1937, after starting his local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Moore filed the first lawsuit to equalize pay for black and white teachers ever seen in the Deep South. By 1949 Moore had taken to investigating lynchings and other crimes of hate, producing writings that protested the unequal treatment of blacks in America, and, after being fired and blacklisted as a teacher for his political activities, he became the full-time organizer for the Florida NAACP. On Christmas Day 1951, six weeks after Moore called for the indictment of an officer who shot two black teens handcuffed in the back of a cruiser, Harry T. Moore and his wife Harriette were killed by a bomb placed beneath the floorboards of their bedroom. The Ballad of Harry T. Moore, a poem originating with Langston Hughes, tells the story of how Moore was killed, but also carries a message of hope and love. As it says, “No bomb can kill the dreams I hold, for freedom never dies!”

It Don't Mean a Thing (if it Ain't Got that Swing)
Duke Ellington & Irving Mills; arr. Roger Emerson

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899–1974) was an American composer, pianist, and leader of a jazz orchestra, which he led from 1923 until his death over a career spanning more than fifty years. His 1931 composition It Don’t Mean a Thing (if it Ain’t Got that Swing) is now accepted as a jazz standard. The song, Ellington said, was “the expression of a sentiment which prevailed among jazz musicians at the time.” Ellington credited the saying as a “credo” of his former trumpeter, Bubber Miley, who was dying of tuberculosis at the time; Miley died the year that the song was released. Ellington’s 1932 recording of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008. Roger Emerson (b. 1950) is one of the leading choral composers in America today with over 500 titles in print.

Freedom Train
Rollo A. Dilworth

In the African-American vocal tradition, the image or metaphor of a train has often been employed as a symbol to represent freedom. It is widely known that during the era of slavery there existed a complex set of escape routes from the South to the North — a system known as the Underground Railroad. The slaves would often make references to trains as they labored in the field or as they participated in secret ceremonial gatherings. This “code language” enabled them to plan an escape without being discovered. The most popular spiritual to use the train metaphor is probably “De Gospel Train,” also known as “Get on Board, Little Children.”

Funiculi, Funicula
Luigi Denza; arr. Bill Simon

Bill Simon has been a music educator and music arranger for 35 years. During this time he has taught band at several Wisconsin schools, and began the Power of the Winds Publications in 1994. He has studied arranging with Dominic Spera, Ron Keezer, Ivar Lunde and Michael Cunningham and has received both his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Music Education from the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire.

Funiculi, Funicula was composed in 1880 in Castellammare di Stabia, the home town of the song’s composer, Luigi Denza. The lyrics were contributed by journalist Peppino Turco. It was Turco who prompted Denza to compose it to commemorate the opening of the first funicular cable car on Mount Vesuvius. The piece became immensely popular in Italy and abroad, and the sheet music sold over a million copies in the first year. Funiculi, Funicula is a lively Italian tarantella, and this fun and happy tune celebrates the joy of living!

Cumberland Cross
Carl Strommen

Carl Strommen attended and graduated from Long Island University and the City College of New York, and studied orchestration with Manny Albam and Rayburn Wright and composition with Stefan Wolpe. Carl first started arranging for jazz bands in high school, and has many arrangements and compositions for jazz bands and concert bands. He has credited Aaron Copland and Charles Ives as models for many of his concert band compositions.

Cumberland Cross explores the rich American folk style in two sections. The first has broad moving harmonies under a Shenandoah-like melody, with opportunities for the entire ensemble to work on legato style playing. The second section is a lively dance reminiscent of the American composer Aaron Copland, best known for Rodeo, Appalachian Spring and Fanfare for the Common Man.

The Great Locomotive Chase
Robert W. Smith 

Robert W. Smith is one of the most popular and prolific composers in America today. He has over 600 publications in print with the majority composed and arranged through his long association with Warner Bros. Publications and the Belwin catalog. His original works for winds and percussion have been programmed by countless military, university, high school and middle school bands through the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, South America and Asia. His educational compositions such as The Tempest, Encanto and The Great Locomotive Chase have become standards for bands throughout the world. 

Inspired by the events surrounding the railway between Atlanta and Chattanooga during the early years of the Civil War, Robert W. Smith stages the train chase complete with fascinating textures and effects in The Great Locomotive Chase. This programmatic work depicts what became known as “the boldest adventure of the war”. Listeners become engulfed in the vivid sounds, and you can almost smell the smoke. All aboard!