Description
In five parts (SAATB), these Spirituals are deliberately brief, for they were arranged as introductions (Introits) for four Christmastide seasons: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, and Flight from Herod. A prominent feature of the arrangements is the frequent distribution of the melody across the various voice parts. The Spirituals may be performed separately (e.g., on different Christmastide services) or as originally performed: as introductions to sections of a Christmastide concert. The Arranger’s Note sets out the relevant verses of the African-American Spirituals used and touches on some aspects of each Introit, most notably the unusual use of the carol Mary Had a Baby in the last introit.
William J. Bullock Biography
Dr. William J. Bullock (b. 1943) is a retired professor of music, choral conductor, and arts administrator. His degrees (BME, MA, Ph.D.) are from The Florida State University. He taught music and conducted choruses at Tarrant County (Texas) College (1968–1977), the University of Southern Mississippi (1977–1982) and the Columbus (Georgia) State University’s The Joyce and Henry Schwob School of Music (1982–2001). During his career Dr. Bullock designed concerts around divers themes, conducted small- and large-scale choral works and music theater productions, served as adjudicator and guest conductor in seven south and southwestern states, led concert tours of Mexico and Eastern and Western Europe, and organized and guided study tours of Scandinavia, Australia, Vienna and Vancouver. He also served as a state president of the American Choral Directors Association, executive director of Georgia’s Southeastern Music Center, and choirmaster for Methodist and Episcopal churches.
In 2000 Dr. Bullock founded the professional chorus Cantus Columbus. Throughout the chorus’ twenty-year existence he created and conducted its imaginative programs, including many of his own arrangements. Most of the chorus’ concerts were either patterned after famed conductor Robert Shaw’s Christmas concerts or devoted to arrangements (many with string quartet) of songs by the five founders of the Great American Songbook. In 2003 Dr. Bullock joined the staff of Columbus Georgia’s newly established RiverCenter for the Performing Arts, ultimately serving as the center’s third executive director (2009–2015).
A choral literature authority, Dr. Bullock is known for his many prosodic English translations of choral works, translations that retain the originals’ syllable count, stress pattern, and if present, rhyme scheme. He has published journal articles, a book on the cantatas of J. S. Bach, and the only bilingual edition of the Brahms Requiem, which includes his modern, prosodic translation. Many of Bullock’s music editions, arrangements, and compositions have been published by Keiser-Southern Music, Hinshaw Music, GIA Publications, Concordia Publishing House, Lawson-Gould Music Publishers, Paraclete Press Sacred Music, National Music Publishers, Pavane Publishing, TUX People’s Music, Sigma Squared Music, Cimarron Press, Potenza Music, Eighth Note Publications, Hildegard Publishing, and Imagine Music. Several of his arrangements of songs still under copyright are available via ArrangeMe.com from SheetMusicPlus and SheetMusicDirect. Dr. Bullock’s career papers, along with the performance materials and files of Cantus Columbus, are available at the Columbus (Georgia) State University Archives and Special Collections.
