Throughout February, WTOP is celebrating Black History Month. Join us on air and online as we bring you the stories, people and places that make up our diverse community.
Washingtonians may be familiar with the strains of the James Weldon Johnson composition “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” The song, heard at student assemblies or choral recitals, is often known as the “Black national anthem.”
But, at the Washington National Cathedral, Black History Month kicks off with “Onward and Upward,” a presentation of works by composers whose works might not be so well known to many listeners.
Works by composers such as Undine Moore, Florence Price and Thomas Kerr were chosen for the program.
The selections were compiled by Michele Fowlin, the associate director of Music for Contemporary Worship at the National Cathedral.
Fowlin attended Howard University and taught for over two decades in Prince George’s County and the District of Columbia. She sees her role at the National Cathedral as another kind of teaching, inviting listeners to sample a whole new catalog of music.
The associate director told WTOP it’s exciting “to educate the community that Black composers did so much more than just write spirituals.”
“They wrote art songs and a lot of orchestral works and operas,” she added.
Fowlin said she enjoys drawing people not just into the music, but also into the space at the National Cathedral, a place that she sees as a “safe haven.”
“No matter what your walk in life is, you can always find a piece of you represented here,” she said.
Fowlin wants visitors to the Cathedral — and to its musical programs — to find a place that is comfortable, where they can get the sense that “I belong,” she said.
Helping people find ways to connect is also a great motivator, “until we can all get to a space where we are not seeing each other for the various titles outside of being human,” she said.
Fowlin is quick to say she doesn’t have a favorite composer, but she does have a piece that is particularly important to her.
“There’s this piece called ‘A Singer’s Prayer,'” she said. “For me, every time before I hit the stage, whether I’m conducting, singing, whether I’m going out to do a lecture, I just remind myself that my center is with God, and I can’t do this without him.”
