The Choir School of Delaware and the Children’s Chorus of Washington join forces to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Harriet Tubman’s birth.
The collaboration is called Stand Up: Harriet Tubman Tour and features stops in Washington DC, Wilmington and Philadelphia.
“It is really the extension of some learning opportunities that we’ve been working on since 2020 with some colleagues and some local children's chorus’ - where we’ve been studying the Underground Railroad," said Arreon Harley-Emerson, the Choir School’s director of music and operations. "And we were studying it for sometime and we thought - wouldn’t it be great to actually see some of these sites.”
The tour starts in DC Friday and Saturday where they’ll visit the African American History Museum for what Harley-Emerson calls some “informal singing.”
After a visit to Harriet Tubman’s birthplace in Dorchester County, Maryland, the groups are in Wilmington Sunday to perform negro spirituals at the Juneteenth Ceremony at the Wilmington Friends Meeting House at 11 a.m.
“We’ll be singing “Go Down Moses,” said Harley-Emerson. "So Harriet Tubman could not just go by the name Harriet Tubman because she became a pretty well-known fugitive with a high price on her head. And that was the language they used - a price on her head. However Harriet Tubman was known as Moses.”
“Wade In the Water” and “Follow the Drinking Gourd” are also part of the performances.
They join the St. Thomas Gospel Choir and youth choirs in Philadelphia Monday for a concert at the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas - then perform Tuesday at the First Presbyterian Church in Easton, PA.
All performances are free.
Delaware Public Media' s arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
