Hampton University’s Concert Choir is in England this week to introduce the Black choral sound to a European audience and commemorate trailblazer R. Nathaniel Dett.
“I never thought coming to Hampton four years ago that you could tell me I’d be performing in London,” said Richayla Stallings, a native of Waterbury, Connecticut and choral member since her freshman year.
“I’m eager to retrace the steps of Nathaniel Dett and sing his pieces.”
Dett served as the first African American director of music at Hampton from 1913 until 1932. In 1930, he led the choir on a groundbreaking European tour that showcased African American spirituals — songs his grandmother sung, which he then composed — to an international audience.
The six-week goodwill trip covered seven countries and included a stop in Washington, D.C., to perform on the White House lawn for President Herbert Hoover.
“We talk about Dett all the time,” said Omar Dickenson, director of Hampton University choirs since 2012. “He is an integral part of what we do.”
In honor of the centennial of Dett’s 2030 tour, the choir will perform in Europe five times during the next five years, beginning with this week's trip to London.
Thirty students from the concert choir will perform three times, including an exchange concert with Canterbury Christ Church University on Friday. Next year, the choir will travel to Belgium.
Each concert will be a nod to Dett’s music and include many of his most famous works, including “Listen to the Lambs” and “Don’t You Weep No More, Mary.”
Dett was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada and became an accomplished pianist. He studied at Oberlin Conservatory and became its first African American to graduate with a music degree. He went on to win a Bowdoin Prize in 1920 for his essay “The Emancipation of Negro Music,” the first of two honors he earned from Harvard University. He also won the Francis Boott Award for a choral composition.
Dett joined the faculty at Hampton Institute, today Hampton University, in 1913. He directed various choral groups that traveled extensively, performing at Carnegie Hall and once for President Calvin Coolidge. He was instrumental in establishing a school of music in Hampton in 1931.
Dett’s signature style of composition combined the sound of 19th-century Romantic tunes with Black folk songs and spirituals, melodies of enslaved people that he feared would be lost.
The 1930 tour, featuring 40 choral members, included performances in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Great Britain. They sang for a crowd of 3,000 at Westminster Abbey. News reports note the choir received 12 encores at its Berlin performance.
The choir will also sing music by Roland Carter, choral director at Hampton for 24 years, as well as pieces by conductor/educator Noah Francis Ryder and modern composers such as Marques L.A. Garrett, a Hampton alumnus.
The students will also get a chance to see the sights, including a possible stop at Buckingham Palace.
“There are so many possibilities that we’re keeping our options open,” Dickenson said.
The concert choir is the university’s most experienced and one of three at Hampton, which also has a gospel and university choir. The concert choir requires a separate audition and a high level of commitment with afternoon and evening auditions.
Felipe Gonzalez just graduated with a master’s in teaching with an emphasis in music education. He has been part of the concert choir since 2021, when he was an undergraduate.
“I look forward to seeing how our sound translates in different venues,” he said. “We don’t stay in the box of just doing spirituals. We do a bunch of classical, and we sing songs in other languages. It’s appealing to others who aren’t used to seeing a group of African American and brown students being able to quote-unquote sing westernized music.”
It’s not unusual for the concert choir to travel, dating back to the days when Dickenson was a member, but this is his first time taking the choir overseas.
This year, the choir has performed in Detroit, Houston, New Orleans and Battle Creek, Michigan. Dett died in Battle Creek in 1943 while serving the United Service Organization as a choral advisor.
“I want them to understand and appreciate the opportunities that are possible here at Hampton, things you become exposed to when you put yourself in a position to succeed,” Dickenson said. “The opportunities are limitless.”
