Howard University Brings Music to CC Atrium

Large group singing with Black man and Black woman in front with handheld mics.

Afro Blue soloists Lazarus Brown (front, l) and KayaZhanna Donaldson lead the finale, Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round.

Photo: Marleen Van Den Neste

Donaldson leads the group in 1+1, an original jazz composition she wrote.

Photo: Marleen Van Den Neste

CC Acting Executive Officer Ila Anita Flannigan donned the colors for her alma mater on Feb. 27, as the Howard University music department performed in the atrium. In welcoming remarks before the concert, Flannigan noted HU’s 157th birthday was being celebrated the same week.

Photo: Marleen Van Den Neste

Young Black man in black suit and bowtie gestures as he sings.

Baritone Khalil Callender renders the classical Deep River.

Photo: Marleen Van Den Neste

Soprano Zsana Hoskins performs When I Get Home.

Photo: Marleen Van Den Neste

Four young Black women, in pairs, sing into microphone.

The all-female SAASy sings Wade in the Water.

Photo: Marleen Van Den Neste

Young Black man wearing a black turtleneck and blue velvet jacket sings into handheld mic.

The salute to musical Black history included (from l) Tyree Austin leading his composition, The Trauma Express.

Photo: Marleen Van Den Neste

Herman Burney Jr. accompanies the vocalists on bass.

Photo: Marleen Van Den Neste

Large group of African American men and women smile for camera with CC atrium behind them.

The Howard University music department rendered a lunchtime concert to cap the Clinical Center’s Black History Month observance.

Photo: Marleen Van Den Neste

In celebration of Black History Month, the Clinical Center (CC) hosted a lunchtime concert, “A Journey Through Song of the Underground Railroad,” featuring several groups from the Howard University music department.

The CC north atrium was filled on Feb. 27 with songs representing classical to jazz genres.

Musicians in the school’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts, the student and alumni artists assembled into a few different ensembles, including a classical choir; the HU Jazz Singers; SAASy (soprano, alto, alto, soprano), an all-female jazz group; and Afro Blue, the university’s premiere jazz vocal ensemble that in recent years was the subject of an award-winning film.

Accompanied by a pianist, bassist and drummer, vocalists performed traditional favorites such as Wade in the Water and Deep River as well as original compositions The Trauma Express and 1+1 by HU students.

In one of its most entertaining and informative selections, Afro Blue delivered an a capella account of Henry Box Brown, who was born into slavery in 19th-century Virginia and nearly died while escaping to freedom in a wooden crate he arranged to have mailed to Philadelphia.

“Brown laid down the shovel and the hoe | Down in the box he did go | No more slavework for Henry Box Brown | In the box by express he did go”