How Sweet The Sound

African American composers, poets, and hymnographers join musicians from multiple traditions for events exploring the intersections between African American and Orthodox sacred music.

We will open the concert with Bright Sadness, Orthodox hymns based on African American spirituals by the nun Mother Katherine Weston. The second half features Vespers: How Sweet the Sound by jazz musician and composer Dr. Shawn Wallace. Drawing on both Black Gospel and Orthodox musical settings, How Sweet the Sound highlights the connections between these traditions in a setting of Orthodox Vespers.

Featured Composers & Directors

MOTHER KATHERINE WESTON

Mother Katherine is an Orthodox nun and abbess. She is a psychotherapist, iconographer, and composer, and leader in the Fellowship of St. Moses the Black, with a special focus on racial reconciliation.

DERRICK McDUFFEY

Derrick McDuffey is founder and director of Kingdom Sound, one of the Northwest’s top Gospel choirs, and in demand as an arranger, clinician, and collaborator, recently for a commercial with LeBron James.

DR. SHAWN WALLACE

Shawn “Thunder” Wallace is an Orthodox Christian working in jazz, classical, contemporary Christian, and gospel music, and is director of Jazz Studies at The Ohio State University (Columbus).

Kingdom Sound Gospel Choir

Cappella Romana

St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church

2100 Boyer Ave E, Seattle, WA

Maranatha Church

4222 NE 12th Ave, Portland, OR