Top African-American conductor Rollo Dilworth leads Vancouver Chamber Choir in JUBILEE, March 11

The prolific Philadelphia-based artist composes music focused on social justice and change

By Gail johnson

Rollo Dilworth.

Vancouver Chamber Choir presents JUBILEE on March 11 at 7:30 pm at Chan Centre for the Performing Arts

AFROCENTRIC COMPOSITIONS, FROM choral classics to contemporary works, make up Vancouver Chamber Choir’s JUBILEE, featuring guest conductor Rollo Dilworth.

Vice dean and professor of choral music education in the department of music education and therapy at Temple University’s Center for the Performing and Cinematic Arts in Philadelphia, Dilworth has composed and arranged more than 200 African American spirituals and works in the gospel, blues, and jazz traditions, pieces that have been performed around the world. Much of his musical portfolio focuses on themes of social justice and social change.

In 2022, Dilworth was the inaugural recipient of Chorus America’s Alice Parker Fund Award, which supports the composition and thoughtful presentation of choral music based in the traditions of Black and Latinx communities.

Two of Dilworth’s pieces are on the VCC program: his original “Jeremiah’s Fire!” and his arrangement of “Roll, Jordan, Roll!”

In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate level courses in choral music education, Dilworth also serves as conductor for the Temple University Singing Owls Campus/Community Chorus, among other groups, and he has written several educational books, including three textbooks of choral warm up exercises intended for elementary and secondary choral ensembles. He has lectured on topics such as African American choral music, social emotional learning, cultural appropriation, and urban music education.

Also making up the JUBILEE program is “Ave Maria” by Robert Nathaniel Dett and “Let Us Cheer the Weary Traveler” arranged by Dett and Marques L.A. Garrett. Dett was born in Drummondville, Ontario, in 1882; his ancestors were among the slaves who escaped to the North. Having studied at the Oberlin Conservatory, he received his bachelor’s of music degree in 1908 and went on to study at Harvard University, the American Conservatory, and Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he earned his master’s. At the Hampton Institute, he became the first Black person to hold the position of director of the music department. The same year, in 1926, Oberlin Conservatory awarded Dett an honourary doctor of music degree, another first for an African Canadian-American. He published some 100 compositions, mostly piano, vocal, and choral works.

JUBILEE also features pieces composed or arranged by Rosephanye Powell, B.E. Boykin, Adolphus Hailstork, Ysaÿe Barnwell, G. Phillipp Shoultz III, Glenn L. Jones, Thomas A. Dorsey and Arnold Sevier, Moses Hogan, and Dolores White. 

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