Stand Up Straight and Sing! by Jessye Norman Page A

only have been created by my ancestors, the slaves brought to a new land starting in the early 1600s, and their descendants up until 1865, the historical period of slavery in the United States. There were no trombones and Hammond organs to be had by them and no composers other than the heart longings of a people in bondage singing their way through the most challenging of human experiences. “Singing through,” not “singing themselves out” of the horror.
    The blues came next, and then more instruments helped bring jazz into being. These new instruments, first abhorred by churchgoers, soon found their way into the church, where Spirituals, in a new presentation, became the first gospel songs. Therefore, it is possible to take a Spiritual and turn it into a gospel song, but one cannot do the reverse. The Spirituals came first. The gospel song is often a modern version of a well-known Spiritual.
    If we are lucky as performers, the music and spirit together reveal themselves before our audiences, creating an added dimension to the performance—an added dimension over which we have absolutely no control. For any undefined reason one can be ill at ease during a performance, or maybe the connection with the audience can be so visceral, so powerful, that some are inspired to come backstage and say something like “I know that you were singing that song especially for me tonight. I really felt that you were looking straight at me,” when in fact, you had been conscious of no such thing. When this happens, I am grateful for it. We are human beings, and this kind of connection sustains us in our humanity, and we are better for it.
    Indeed, such connections become all the more profound when the presentation is in a sacred space. Growing up, churchgoing and church activities made up the fabric of my daily life, and so I have always found singing in a church, in the great cathedrals of the world, to be experiences at once awe-inspiring and wondrously comforting. The grandeur of the spaces has never overtaken the sense of joy of being there. I seem to always know my way around these wonderful places. There are not the usual dressing rooms, and the pulpit more often than not serves as the stage. Lighting rigs are not often used, nor diffusion gels to flatter the face. And yet, somehow, the rector, pastor, or other church officials always feel compelled to make remarks prior to the performance. In other words, it’s just like home. My experiences in some of the world’s most beautiful, sacred spaces are every bit as treasured as they are memorable. In some, I sing, in some, I take part in fellowship, in others still, I mourn. I count each experience as a blessing.
    Some church edifices are so celebrated, so historic, that seeing them only from the outside can be a very moving experience. I will not soon forget the time I talked my way into the Sistine Chapel, in Vatican City, Italy, after visiting hours. When, finally, a security guard allowed me through those doors, I stood motionless for a long while just taking in the whole of it all. Through streaming tears, I looked up at a ceiling that was far larger than my art history books had led me to understand: the colors, the majesty of the frescoes, the detail. I can see this as clearly in my mind’s eye today as I did up close that fine afternoon. The security guard understood what I was experiencing and left me to my heightened emotions, my gratitude, and my even higher regard for one Michelangelo.
    I recall those same feelings the first time I performed an orchestral concert in the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. I was standing on the built-up stage in front of the altar, at a great distance from but still directly in front of the famous Rose Window, the fifteenth-century masterpiece that had also been such a part of my art appreciation studies. The sight of it was so moving that I found it difficult to focus on anything else. The same goes for the flying buttresses of the