Singer Struggles to Pluck Spirituals from Deep Abyss

In both performance and recording, the current preoccupation appears to be restoring music to its original state. Period instrument orchestras, from London’s Hanover Band to the Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, thrive, and a new generation of singers has been trained to execute Baroque ornamentation fluently and to improvise cadenzas on the spot.

Mezzo-soprano Blanche Foreman is an advocate of another rich vein of authentic performance practice, one much closer to home for many American musicians than the opera-ballets of Lully or the early symphonies of Haydn. Foreman sings the solo vocal arrangements of Negro spirituals and art songs written by black composers.

According to Foreman, the Negro spiritual has suffered as much from prejudice by the American music establishment as from neglect or confusion by the current generation of black musicians.

“In the most prestigious vocal competitions, you cannot sing a Negro spiritual arranged by a black composer,” explained Foreman, “although in the category of American music, they would let you sing Aaron Copland’s setting of ‘Shall We Gather at the River?’ And the younger generation thinks that spirituals are some form of Gospel music, which is now the vogue. The spiritual has really been abandoned.”

A member of Vassar College’s music faculty, Foreman did much of her research on the Negro spiritual while pursuing her doctorate at Indiana University. This week in San Diego, Foreman will present two recitals in which she will combine spirituals, art songs by black American composers, and song cycles by Gustav Mahler. Friday night she will sing at Hillcrest’s Words and Music Gallery, and Sunday at 4 p.m. she will appear at La Jolla’s St. James Episcopal Church.

According to Foreman, the first Negro spirituals arranged for piano and voice were done early in the century by Henry T. Burleigh, who studied harmony with Dvorak. Paul Robeson’s accompanist, Lawrence Brown, was also a prolific arranger of spirituals, as was Hall Johnson, whose popular choir sang the sound track for the 1936 movie “Green Pastures.”

Foreman not only performs this repertory, but teaches spirituals to her college vocal students along with opera and traditional European art songs.

“With the right training, anyone can sing spirituals,” she said. “You don’t have to be black. After all, I’m by no means German, and I sing Mahler.”

Foreman’s other crusade is performing art songs written by black American composers. From this repertory, she champions songs composed by the late Margaret Bonds, who set the poetry of Langston Hughes to music, as well as compositions by Charles Lloyd and Leslie Adams.

“There are at least 600 of these songs out there, but getting them published is one of the greatest problems,” Foreman said.

Talmi tales. Last week, San Diego Symphony music director designate Yoav Talmi smiled for the cameras and cut a red ribbon to open the new box office in Symphony Towers. For the rest of his week in San Diego, however, he kept a low profile. He met extensively with executive director Wesley Brustad to map out the 1990-91 season, Talmi’s first season as music director, and he listened to some trumpet auditions. In anticipation of the orchestra’s new Pulitzer Series at UC San Diego, he visited the UCSD campus.

This week he is back on the podium conducting two programs for the final week of the Houston Symphony’s Mostly Mozart festival. Tomorrow night at Houston’s Jones Hall, Talmi will be joined by cellist Ralph Kirshbaum, a familiar soloist to San Diego Symphony audiences, in the Haydn C Major Cello Concerto. Friday, Talmi will lead the Houston crew and soloist Ken Noda in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 26.

Local audiences will have to wait until Oct. 13 for their turn to hear Talmi and Mozart, however, when the Israeli conductor’s season-opening concert will pair Mahler’s Fifth Symphony with Mozart’s A Major Piano Concerto, K. 488, with pianist Garrick Ohlsson.

Alfresco nuptials. Hospitality Point, the San Diego Symphony’s summer digs, provided the backdrop for orchestra horn player Doug Hall’s wedding re-enactment Thursday evening. Forty relatives and symphony colleagues gathered behind the stage to witness Hall’s restaged nuptials to Laura Zoeckler. Minister Nels Oas presided at Thursday’s reprised ceremony.

The two were married by a justice of the peace in June, but chose this time, before a SummerPops concert, to allow members of Hall’s musical family to attend. In keeping with Hall’s profession, the wedding music was supplied by a brass ensemble. Hal Wingard, husband of symphony violinist Eileen Wingard, offered an original song, which he accompanied on guitar. After the ceremony, Hall went to work deep in the bowels of the horn section while Laura and her attendants joined the SummerPops audience.