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Joshua Conyers believes Black spirituals belong in the concert repertoire and so do the contents of the “Anthology of Art Songs by Black American Composers.”
This collection of art songs by Black American composers, published in 1977 and continuously in print, has become basic repertoire for musicians of color, but they’re virtually unknown to other musicians—hiding in plain sight.
Conyers, an assistant professor of voice at the Eastman School of Music, hopes to change that situation with his newly released recording project, “In Plain Sight: The Black Anthology” (Lexicon Classics). The recording presents the complete contents of the anthology: 42 songs by Black composers of the past and near-present.
A recital inspired by the new release will take place Tuesday, Sept.15, at Eastman’s Kilbourn Hall, and repeated at Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Hall in New York City on Oct.16.
Conyers is a bass-baritone noted for such classical roles as Verdi’s Rigoletto and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. But “In Plain Sight” represents his role as a stalwart champion of vocal music by Black American composers.
As Conyers alludes, great Black American singers such as Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson, and Leontyne Price often sang spirituals in formal recitals. But alongside this great repertoire, the 20th and 21st centuries have also produced a significant number of art songs by Black American composers. Some of them are fairly well-known—Florence Price, Undine Smith Moore, Margaret Bonds, George Walker, William Grant Still—but not necessarily for their songs.
You can sample two of these songs as singles from the album: Undine Moore’s “Love, Let the Wind Cry … How I Adore Thee,” sung by Nicole Cabell, and Howard Swanson’s “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” written for Marian Anderson, sung by Eastman undergraduate Jordan Oney.
Conyers thought his idea of recording the “Black Anthology” was a long shot, but he lined up the major players with surprising ease. The project received enthusiastic support from his record label, Lexicon Classics, which produced his Grammy-nominated album “Miracle in Legacy”; Grammy-winning producer Steven Roessner of the University of Rochester’s Hajim School of Engineering; Conyers’ Eastman voice department colleagues, who assigned the songs to their students; and Eastman dean Kate Sheeran.
Conyers and Eastman faculty sopranos Cabell and Kiera Duffy all appear on “In Plain Sight,” along with cellist David Ying, a number of Eastman voice coaches and accompanists, and student vocalists and instrumentalists—40 Eastman musicians in all, from many different backgrounds. They all got together the week of Feb. 3–11 at the Hajim School to record “In Plain Sight,” and the album was released on Aug. 21.
“Each of us only had about 20 or 30 minutes to get their song down,” says Conyers, “so I was kind of nervous about the students. But each one came so thoroughly prepared and behaved so professionally, and the whole thing went so smoothly.”
One of the Eastman students is Isa Apodaca, a Mexican-American singer who is in her fifth and last year of a double major in voice and music education.
Apodaca was a last-minute addition to the roster of student singers, but she was delighted to take part in an exploration of what she calls “underrepresented repertoire.” Even on short notice, she was fully prepared with her contribution to “In Plain Sight,” Florence Price’s “Night.”
“Singing with an array of mics and maybe two or three people in the room is a very different stratosphere from singing on stage to an audience, which I’m trained to do,” Apodaca says, adding, “I’m better on stage.”
“Music has its real power in performance,” Conyers agrees. But as Apodaca’s teacher, he proudly points out that her recording has already received 25,000 streams on Spotify. “I only have 500!” he laughs.
Conyers admits that a few of the songs in the Anthology speak so specifically to the Black experience, or are so obviously for a male or female speaker, that they probably don’t work for white singers. But he encourages singers to experiment, and he’s quick to add that “Black stories can be seen through different lenses, and don’t have to be sung by people who look like me.
“In singing opera and recitals,” he adds, “I tell all kinds of stories—Italian, German, English, French. I tell them for all of us to hear, because these stories belong to all of us.”
The Anthology was originally published almost 50 years ago, and Conyers admits that since then enough songs by Black American composers have been written, or rediscovered, to fill a few more such anthologies. He has premiered and performed songs and operas by a number of contemporary composers.
“There are many purposeful new Black composers,” says Conyers, naming Jasmine Barnes and Carlos Simon, whose work he has premiered. “In my own recitals, I continually create space for their music.”
Florence Price and George Walker are no replacement for Schubert and Verdi, but there’s no reason their music can’t join the performing repertoires of more singers.
“This music is so American,” says Apodaca. “It’s rich, beautiful, and fantastic to sing. Copland and Bernstein are very familiar to us, but here’s a whole other side to American music, with its roots in jazz, blues, and popular music. It’s so good to have it front-facing in a project like this.”
“There’s power and beauty in diversity,” Conyers agrees. “We’ve always been here, and we’re not going anywhere.”
“In Plain Sight” opens the 2026-2027 “Eastman Explores America” series, which will also include appearances by Alarm Will Sound (Oct. 2), Chanticleer (Oct. 25), pianist Emanuel Ax (March 17), and many other musicians. More information is available here.
Eastman School of Music presents “In Plain Sight” in the Eastman Presents series on Tuesday, Sept. 15 at 7:30 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall, and Oct. 16 at Merkin Hall in New York. Information and tickets on this concert available here. For information on the Merkin Hall concert, go here.
“In Plain Sight” is a Lexicon Classics release, available as a physical CD, and also on many music streaming services.
David Raymond is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer.
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