IF YOU GO
What: "The Journey of Harriet Tubman," a multimedia concert
When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 1
Where: First Congregational Church, 6105 Center Road, Traverse City
Admission: Free, but donations accepted
“The Journey of Harriet Tubman” uses five different spirituals to tell the story of Tubman, her life and her work as an abolitionist who helped enslaved people find their way out of the American south and into freedom, via the Underground Railroad.
Randale McCuien sings bass in the choir. He’s a senior at Central. He’s African American, and he says at first, he was apprehensive about the choir taking on this work.
“I didn’t want it to be falsely represented,” he said. “Because musicians are storytellers, just like how bards were before, and I felt like this was something that needed to be properly understood, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to be that way.”
He says he talked with his teachers, and they assured him everyone would learn the story as well as the music.
“And so I’m happy to be part of it,” McCuien said.
Before rehearsing each movement, the students hear details of Tubman’s life, and how each spiritual connects to those details. And they learn about the broader context of the time.
“Music was such a heavy part of everything in Black culture during the slave times and before that, so it’s an amazing thing for me to be able to apply that now, here,” McCuien said.
The multimedia performance — which also includes a visual presentation — is set for 7 p.m. Thursday at the First Congregational Church on Center Road in Traverse City.
The voice of Harriet will be sung by soprano Vanessa A. Allen, of Grand Rapids.
And Ron Kean, who arranged these spirituals into this larger work, will be in attendance, along with his daughter, filmmaker Hannah Kean.
For these students, performing this work is about the musical challenge and growing as performers. But diving into the history gives it just a little more heft.
“It’s not our best history,” said teacher Erich Wangeman, one of the directors of vocal music at West Senior High School. "We know that the pieces were passed down from generation to generation because of the oppressed people. If we’re not singing them and knowing them, then we’re not looking at our history.”
“It’s repeated hard labor and that’s what this music is representing. It feels very heavy for me as I sing it. ... It feels very real. That’s the best word I can use for it. It feels very real when I sing it.”
Randale McCuien
senior at Central High School
Ava Shotwell, a senior at Central who sings alto in the choir, says rehearsing this work has helped her get a deeper understanding of history.
“I’m in an AP U.S. History course right now and we’re covering very similar stuff. We’re ending the Civil War this week. You kind of get this very surface-level description,” said Shotwell, who is white. “We were talking about ‘the slaves escape to the north.’ That’s all we got into. That’s why this project is so important. We’re really diving into Harriet Tubman herself, and the Underground Railroad itself. You’re not just getting that surface level description of it."
It's also brought new dimensions to McCuien’s understanding of Harriet Tubman and her life.
“It actually took me a moment to really be comfortable enough to feel the music for what it is and what it represents for me as an African American,” he said.
In the song “Steal Away,” the deeper voices in the choir, including McCuien’s, repeat a phrase that ends with a heavy exclamation of “Wah!” — a breath of exhaustion.
“I can feel weight coming off me every time I say that line,” he said. “It’s repeated hard labor and that’s what this music is representing. It feels very heavy for me as I sing it, and I ... it feels very real. That’s the best word I can use for it. It feels very real when I sing it.”
