Large Ensemble Concert Series

NIU Choral Concert

NIU Concert Choir
NIU University Chorus

Eric Johnson, director, NIU Concert Choir
Mary Lynn Doherty, director, University Chorus

April 26, 2026  
3 p.m.
Boutell Memorial Concert Hall

Program

Composer Bios

Ralph Vaughan Williams was born on 12 October 1872 in the Cotswold village of Down Ampney, where his father was vicar. Antecedents included the interconnected families of Wedgwood and Darwin. Following his father’s death in 1875 he was brought up at Leith Hill Place in Surrey and educated at Charterhouse School, the Royal College of Music and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a pupil of Charles Stanford and Hubert Parry, later studying with Max Bruch in Berlin and Maurice Ravel in Paris.

At the turn of the century he was among the very first to travel into the countryside to collect folk songs and carols from singers, notating them for future generations to enjoy. As musical editor of The English Hymnal he composed several hymn tunes that remain popular (including Sine Nomine, “For all the Saints” and Down Ampney, “Come down O love Divine”). A long and deep friendship with Gustav Holst was a constructive relationship which was crucial to the development of both composers.

Vaughan Williams took three years off his age in order to volunteer for the army during the 1914-1918 war; after a long period of training and waiting he was sent to France in 1916, serving as a wagon orderly in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Later, he was given a commission in the Royal Garrison Artillery and found himself in charge of both guns and horses. The carnage and the loss of close friends such as the composer George Butterworth deeply affected him and influenced his music after the war.

Youthful atheism eventually settled down into cheerful agnosticism. He was widely read, and heavily influenced by poets and writers including Shakespeare, Bunyan, Blake and Walt Whitman.

Vaughan Williams was married twice: in 1897 to Adeline Fisher, and in 1953 to the poet Ursula Wood. A knighthood was offered and refused, but the Order of Merit was conferred upon him in 1935.

He died on 26 August 1958; his ashes are interred in Westminster Abbey, near Purcell. In a long and productive life, music flowed from his creative pen in profusion. Hardly a musical genre was untouched or failed to be enriched by his work, which included nine symphonies, concertos for piano, violin, oboe and tuba, five operas, chamber, ballet and film music, a large body of songs and song cycles, and various important unaccompanied and orchestral choral works. His orchestral works include such popular favorites as The Lark Ascending, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, The Wasps Overture and the English Folk Song Suite.

Ralph Vaughan Williams Society
https://www.rvwsociety.com/short-biography/

Jester Hairston  (1901-2000) worked as composer, arranger, singer, conductor, and actor. He is known primarily as one of a small number of African American composers whose work transformed African-American spirituals into an accepted genre of choral music.

Hairston was born July 1, 1901 in Bellows Creek, North Carolina, near the plantation where his grandparents had been slaves. Not long after his birth, the Hairston family moved to a steel mill town near Pittsburgh by the name of Homestead. Of this town, Hairston said, “There’s nothing to do there but work in steel mills. That’s the reason I got out of there as quickly as I could.” Hairston attended University of Massachusetts in Amherst on a two year church scholarship, but was unable to continue for lack of money. He began working and met Northampton schoolteacher, Laura Anna Kidder. She was so impressed with his musical talent that she was willing to pay for his education with her savings. He subsequently repaid her for her loan. Hairston had applied to Tufts University, which was know for its music department, and was turned down. After his rejection, Hairston ran into a friend in New York, who was also African-American and who had been admitted to Tufts for his athletic skills. This student advised Hairston to write a letter to the music department and to “lay it on thick!” Hairston followed his advice and auditioned for Leo R. Lewis, the head of the music department on Lewis’ front porch and was subsequently admitted. Hairston graduated from Tufts in 1929 and went on to study music theory at Julliard for two years.

After leaving Julliard, Hairston became the assistant director of the Hall Johnson Choir in New York and it was there that he developed his interest in African-American spirituals. For a short time he organized the African American ‘The Jester Hairston Singers,’ one of whose members was Margaret Isabel Swanigan who became his wife in 1939. In 1934/35 WPA hired him as assistant director of one of the largest music schools in New York City for African American children and adults. In 1935, the Hall Johnson Choir went to California to perform in the film, “Green Pastures.” The next year Hairston made his break as a composer in Hollywood with the film “Lost Horizons” and also performed with Shirley Temple and her choir. The Hall Johnson choir also performed with Irvin Cobb on the Paducah plantation radio program for the Oldsmobile people for 26 weeks which was sponsored by GM and canceled eventually due to GM’s prolonged difficulties with the famous sit down strikes in Michigan which invigorated the UAW. In 1937, the Hall Johnson choir gave a private concert for Stravinsky at Paramount studio after which Stravinsky planned to compose a group of choral works for the Hall Johnson Choir, mentioned in a contemporary letter by Hairston. Throughout the 1940s, he arranged choral music in over 40 films such as “Dual in the Sun,” “Friendly Persuasion,” and “Red River.” He became one of Hollywood’s most respected choral directors during this time period. When filmmakers stopped using large choral ensembles, Hairston performed as a character actor (often uncredited) in television and films, including “The Alamo,” “Carmen Jones: “Tarzan,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “So This is Love,” “Tanganyika” (an African movie), “Gypsy Colt,” “Tarzan’s Secret Jungle,” St. Louis Blues and “In the Heat of the Night,” “Lady Sings the Blues,” “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka,” “The Bingo Long Traveling All, Stars and Motor Kings,” “Tender Killing Care,” and “Being John Malkovich” . Hairston also portrayed Henry Van Porter and Leroy Smith in the controversial radio and television show “Amos ‘n Andy.” By 1951, he had also performed as Johnny in the Beulah Show and at Humphrey Bogart’s new radio show, Bold Venture, as a Cuban singer. The US government sent him and an integrated choir on a good will tour to Asia in the 1950s.

Most importantly, Hairston was a prolific composer. He is most famous for “Amen,” a spiritual so “authentic” many did not realize Hairston had composed it. The song was made famous through the film “Lilies of the Field;” Hairston performed the song, dubbing for lead actor, Sidney Poitier. In addition to composing film scores, Hairston composed or arranged more than 300 choral spirituals, including popular compositions such as “Elijah” and “Mary’s Little Boy Child.” Hairston, an expert in the history of African-American folk music and Negro spirituals, became one of the foremost interpreters, arrangers, and composers of this music, once stating ”I decided that I wanted to make my mark in folk songs because my grandparents were slaves […] I wanted to keep that music alive.”

Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Hairston was honored for his work across the US and he was frequently invited as guest conductor at high schools, colleges and church choirs. He also made several State Department sponsored goodwill tours to Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, once stating, “I will bring more love to China through American Negro folk songs than anything Kissinger can write.” Throughout his lifetime, Hairston broke down many racial barriers in the United States. He was, for instance, the first African-American to be invited to conduct in the Mormon Tabernacle choir. Occasionally criticized for taking film and television roles that stereotyped African-Americans, Hairston said, “We had a hard time fighting for dignity. We had no power. We had to take it, and because we took it, the young people today have opportunities.”

Tufts University Archives
https://exhibits.tufts.edu/spotlight/another-light/feature/jester-hairston

Hall Johnson (1888-1970) was one of a number of American composers and arrangers–including Harry T. Burleigh, R. Nathaniel Dett, and Eva Jessye – who elevated the African-American spiritual to an art form, comparable in its musical sophistication to the compositions of European Classical composers.

Johnson received an extensive education, which included a time at the Juilliard School. As a boy, he taught himself to play the violin after hearing a violin recital given by Joseph Henry Douglass, grandson of Frederick Douglass. He went on to play the violin and viola professionally, including in the orchestra for the 1921 musical, Shuffle Along.

In time, however, he became more interested in choral music, forming the Hall Johnson Negro Choir, the first of many choral ensembles, in 1925. Hall Johnson and his choir became renowned through their participation in the 1930 Broadway production of Marc Connelly’s The Green Pastures as well as in national and international tours of the play, radio versions, the 1936 film adaptation, and Hallmark Hall of Fame television broadcasts.

Johnson would also go on to arrange music for and conduct his choir in more than thirty feature-length Hollywood films, as well as a number of short films and cartoons. He wrote Run, Little Chillun, which premiered on Broadway in 1933 and was produced in San Francisco in 1939 under the auspices of the Federal Theater Project. Also in 1939, the Hall Johnson Choir was featured in the soundtrack of the Frank Capra film, Lost Horizon. In addition to his theatrical work, Johnson wrote the Easter cantata Son of Man, which premiered at New York’s City Center in 1946, the same year that the Hall Johnson Choir sang on Walt Disney’s Song of the South. In 1951, the Hall Johnson Choir was selected by the United States Department of State to represent the United States at the International Festival of Fine Arts held in Berlin, Germany.

Johnson was fluent in both German and French. Among the singers he coached were Marian Anderson, Robert McFerrin and Shirley Verrett. His arrangements of the spirituals have been recorded by some of the world’s finest artists. In 1975 he was posthumously honored for his work in films by being elected to the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.

Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
https://www.pcmsconcerts.org/composer/hall-johnson/

Stacey V. Gibbs is a prolific and highly sought-after composer, arranger and clinician. Best known for arrangements of spirituals, he is highly acclaimed for his ability to infuse new energy into familiar works without sacrificing their authenticity or power.

Maestro Gibbs’ spirituals have been commissioned and performed by the King’s Singers of England, United States Air Force Sergeants, The St. Olaf Choir, the Stellenbosch Choir of South Africa, the University of Southern California Chamber Singers, The Princeton Glee Club, Morehouse & the University of Michigan Glee Clubs, the Wartburg Choir, The Nairobi Chamber Singers, Cantus, Chanticleer and many other college, university, high school and professional ensembles both domestically and internationally. His music has been programmed at all state festivals, National Association of Music Educators (MENC) Festivals, the World Choir Games and regional and national American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Conventions.

He currently has over 200 published arrangements available for SATB, SSAA and TTBB voices. His music was featured at the 57th Inaugural Service for President Obama and family.

Maestro Gibbs’ made his conducting debut at Carnegie Hall in 2017. His medley of spirituals was performed by Choir of the World Winner Oakwood Aeolians and American Idol winner Reuben Studdard.

His arrangement of Go, Tell It on the Mountain, performed by True Accord, peaked at #5 on Billboard Classical and #1 on Amazon Classical Music in December 2019. In December 2020, his music was performed by the Mangate Ensemble and was broadcast on NBC Television in all major markets.

Mr. Gibbs serves as clinician (nationally and internationally) for university, high school, professional and church choral ensembles. A management professional with 20 years experience, Mr. Gibbs holds membership in ACDA and currently resides in Detroit, Michigan.

Santa Barbara Music Publishing
https://sbmp.com/ComposerPage.php?ComposerNum=279