Singing | Dr. Kathy Bullock | All Levels | Period 3 | Week 2 (July 14-19, 2024)
We will weave history into the singing as we explore the connections between African American music and history and its African origins. The class will start with the Negro Spiritual, sacred music that began in the 18th and 19th centuries during slavery. Gospel music emerged out of it in the 1920s and 1930s, and has continued to develop, expand, and evolve in a way that touches people all over the world, first as the 20th and now the 21st century version of African American sacred music.
Gospel music is full of joy, hope, and celebration, and is accessible to any who desire to learn it. The singing is participatory and is designed to speak to today’s experiences, to uplift and inspire, to comment on the struggles and trials of life, to support faith and belief, and to strengthen and heal the spirit.
You will hear aspects of jazz, soul, blues, hymns, and spirituals. You will experience rhythm, syncopation, improvisation, call and response, and percussion. As the African proverb states: If you can talk you can sing, and if you walk, you can dance. Music is a part of all life.
About the Instructor
Dr. Kathy Bullock is an educator, scholar, singer, accompanist, arranger and choral conductor who specializes in gospel music, spirituals and classical works by composers from the African diaspora. A Professor Emerita of Music from Berea College, Berea, Kentucky, she currently teaches, performs, and conducts workshops and other programs on African American music throughout the United States, Europe, and Africa.
Dr. Bullock earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in Music Theory from Washington University in St. Louis, MO, and a B.A. in Music from Brandeis University, MA. At Berea College she taught Music Theory, African-American Music, World Music, and other courses in music and general studies. She also directed Berea’s Black Music Ensemble, a choral ensemble that specializes in African American sacred music, developing a small student-run ensemble into an accredited, diverse, and exciting course that averaged seventy students each semester. Additionally, Dr. Bullock designed and led new international study courses in Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Jamaica. In her role as administrator she actively participated in the college’s governance structure throughout her tenure; she was chair of the department, and member of primary governance committees. Dr. Bullock received many acknowledgements for her contributions to Berea College. In particular, she was awarded the highly coveted Seabury Award for teaching, and was later made an Honorary Alumni of the college. Although she has now retired from fulltime teaching, Dr. Bullock recently joined the faculty of the University of Kentucky, School of Music as an adjunct, teaching and providing master classes in African American music.
Dr. Bullock’s presentations include workshops on spirituals and gospel music and explorations of musical connections between African American culture and West African and Appalachian cultures. Other research areas include the Music of the Civil Rights Movement, and African American Women’s Contributions to the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Dr. Bullock teaches and performs at schools, universities, churches, community organizations, throughout the US, educational programs such as the Kentucky Humanities Council, and singing camps such as the Swananoaa singing camp in North Carolina and workshops in Findhorn Foundation in Forres, Scotland. Recently, Dr. Bullock was the first artist at the John C. Campbell Folk School to teach about Appalachian and African American Musical Connections. Other research projects include the completion of an edition of art songs by contemporary African-American composers.
In response to the 2020 pandemic Dr. Bullock created a series of inspirational videos online, performing songs of faith and hope. Indeed in all of her work, Dr. Bullock shares infectious joy and inspires heartfelt connections as she celebrates the transcending power of love and spirit through music.