Variations on an African-American Spiritual

• McGhee composed this chamber work in 2011.¹
• McGhee was commissioned to write this piece in 2021 by the African American Composer Initiative. He was specifically asked to write a piece based on a spiritual, and he chose to base this work on Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.²

“ ‘Variations on an African American Spiritual’ was premiered by the Picasso Ensemble on Sunday, January 29, 2012 during the concert ‘A Musical Sojourn: Two Hundred Years of Music by African American Women and Men’ which took place at the Eastside College Preparatory School, Performing Arts Center in East Palo Alto, California, USA.”

Joshua McGhee’s program note for Variations on an African-American Spiritual³

Movements 

1. Vignette No. 1 
2. Nocturne 
3. Ballad 
4. Spiritual Piece⁴

1. Where Freedom Rings: Compositions by Contemporary African American Composers, Regina Baiocchi, Valerie Capers, Joshua McGhee, John Robinson, Cambria 1238, CD, 2017.
2. African American Composer Initiative, “Josh McGhee speaks on “Variations on an African American Spiritual,” YouTube video, 2:28, July 31, 2013, https://youtu.be/Fs8fXkXPZP0.
3. “Commissions,” Joshua McGhee (2022), accessed January 20, 2022, https://joshmcghee.com/.
4. Where Freedom Rings: Compositions by Contemporary African American Composers.