Published: 2018
Publisher: Print Music Source
Duration: 7:50
Grade: 3
Difficulty: Medium
Suite of African American Spirituals was arranged in the winter of 2017-2018 and is comprised of the following Spirituals: "Every Time I Feel the Spirit," "Deep River", "Down by the Riverside", and "Swing Low." The term "spiritual" is derived from the King James Bible translation of Ephesians 5:19: "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." A "spiritual" is a type of religious folksong that is most closely associated with the enslavement of African people in the American south. The songs proliferated in the last few decades of the eighteenth century leading up to the abolishment of legalized slavery in the 1860s. The African American spiritual constitutes one of the largest and most significant forms of American folksong. Freedom songs based on "spirituals" have also helped to define struggles for democracy in foreign countries.