Brazeal Dennard, Detroit educator and choral director: Lessons from his life

Brazeal Dennard was 81 when he died on July 5 at his Detroit home after a long illness. He touched many lives as an educator for Detroit Public Schools, and he helped create the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's outreach to African-American musical culture, known as Classical Roots.

Still, Dennard was best known in metro Detroit for the Brazeal Dennard Chorale, which he established in 1972 and directed until he took ill.

Most may think of a choral society in terms of participants voicing traditional standards by Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. The Brazeal Dennard Chorale incorporated those works, but also the efforts of lesser-known African-Americans.

Though church choir music has strong roots in African-American culture, choral music also has major ties to African-Americans through history. For example, the book "Choral Music by African-American Composers" by Evelyn Davidson White lists more than 1,600 choral works by more than 100 composers.

Wynton Marsalis, in the PBS "Jazz" series by Ken Burns, explained, "The spirituals actually became the basis of a highly arranged choral music done by professional black composers like Harry T. Burleigh and Samuel Coleridge Taylor (in the post-Civil War era)."

Popular analysis casts "black music" as blues and jazz that emerged early in the 20th century. Brazeal Dennard taught and demonstrated that the roots go back much further. These roots are spirituals that were developed into sophisticated choral arrangements.

Sources:

http://www.freep.com/article/20100706/NEWS08/100706038/1001/NEWS/Chorale-founder-Dennard-enriched-lives-with-music
http://www.amazon.com/Choral-African-American-Composers-Evelyn-Davidson/dp/081083037X
http://www.pbs.org/jazz/time/time_slavery.htm