Greetings!! My name is Randye Jones. I am a native of Greensboro, North Carolina. I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Education from Bennett College in Greensboro. While there, my academic achievements included being named to “Who's Who Among Students in American Colleges and Universities.” I completed my Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance from Florida State University, Tallahassee, where I studied with Barbara Ford and Enrico Di Giuseppe. I served as a music cataloger for the Florida State University Libraries before accepting a library manager position at the George Washington University, Washington, D.C. I recently joined the staff at Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa, as supervisor of the library's listening room. My professional affiliations include: the National Association of Negro Musicians, the Recording Academy, and the Washington Area Music Association.

I have also studied with Mary Jane Crawford, Judith Howle, Timothy Hoekman, and Millicent Scarlett. Dr. Charlotte Alston and Dr. Dominque-René de Lerma encouraged my growth as a musician and researcher.

While my current base of operations is in the Midwestern United States, my travels take me to performance venues throughout the country, and I anticipate opportunities to perform and lecture internationally.

I am a lyric soprano. Although I have performed art songs and operatic arias in recitals around the United States, my interest has turned towards the concert performance of Negro Spirituals. I have begun presenting recitals and lecture recitals on spirituals. Most of this activity is part of my research project called The Art of the Negro Spiritual. (More about this below.)

My most recent recital was on Saturday, October 29, 2005, at Grinnell College. The program included works by Telemann, Mozart, Handel, Rachmaninoff, Mendelssohn, Barber, Still, Johnson, Burleigh, Kerr, Dett, Jackson King, and Bonds. Click to view program or click to listen to Rachmaninoff's Vocalise recorded during that program. If you would like to have this program presented in your locale, call me at 202-904-3635 or 641-275-1481.

My next full recital is an Art of the Negro Spiritual program, currently scheduled for Saturday, February 25, 2006, 7:30 p.m., Sebring-Lewis Hall, Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa. Featured works are John Carter's Cantata and Margaret Bonds' Five Creek-Freedmen Spirituals, as well as settings by Hall Johnson, H. T. Burleigh, R. Nathaniel Dett, Undine Smith Moore, Moses Hogan, Robert L. Morris, Florence Price, Hale Smith, Julia Perry, Betty Jackson King, Maria Thompson Corley, Thomas Kerr, and Uzee Brown.

I will present a lecture recital on classical musicians of African/Native American ancestry at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, on Thursday, April 6, 2006. This will include the performance of Margaret Bonds' Five Creek-Freedmen Spirituals. Other upcoming performances and/or lectures will be announced on this site. Please check regularly for more information.

These recitals serve as an opportunity to explore and share the music created by pioneers and contemporary composers of spiritual art songs. They also allow me to introduce new works, including a solo vocal setting of "I Want Jesus to Walk with Me," composed especially for me by Maria Thompson Corley. I invite you to look at one of the Recital Programs.

I released my debut recording, Come Down Angels, in August 2003. The CD includes spiritual art songs by composers Edward Boatner, Margaret Bonds, H. T. Burleigh, John Carter, Maria Corley, R. Nathaniel Dett, Roland Hayes, Hall Johnson, Betty Jackson King, Robert Mac Gimsey, Undine Smith Moore, Julia Perry, and Hale Smith. The recording comes from live performances I presented accompanied by pianist Francis Conlon. To order copies of the compact disc, visit AhhJay Music at www.ahhjay.com.

My research project, The Art of the Negro Spiritual (ANS), looks into historical and performance aspects of the Negro Spiritual as an art song form. I've developed a Web site where I share parts of my research and that I use to network with others interested in spirituals. The site includes an e-book that has excerpts from the forthcoming book and a survey on the challenges of bringing spiritual art songs to the voice studio. For more information, visit the site at www.artofthenegrospiritual.com.

An even older research project is called Afrocentric Voices in Classical Music. That Web site focuses on African American performers and composers and on the vocal music forms they influenced, especially opera, art songs and Negro spirituals composed for concert performance. There are biographies, bibliographies, a chronology, and other information about this music and these musicians. There is also a place for African American Future Voices to register and network. To learn about this site, please go to the Afrocentric Voices page.

The April 9, 2004, edition of The Carolina Peacemaker covered one of my recent lecture-recitals on "The Gospel Truth about the Negro Spiritual," held in Greensboro, North Carolina. In the article, "Jones Tells the Gospel Truth," writer Ayodele Murphy remarks that, "Add the skills of a vocalist, a passion for performing and a love of research and you will have a few of the ingredients that make up Randye Jones." View the article.

I was profiled in the November 22, 2003, edition of Billboard. Writer Jim Bessman described Come Down Angels as, "the first fruits of her ongoing research of the history of 'art song settings' of Negro spirituals" in the article entitled, "Soprano Gives New Life to Spirituals." You can access the article through Billboard's Web site at www.billboard.com.

I was interviewed for an article in the October 2, 2003, edition of The Gazette. The article, written by the paper's religion editor, Linda Phelps, describes some of the challenges involved in the production of Come Down Angels. Ms. Phelps also wrote an article entitled, "Researcher Finds Answers to Negro Spiritualism Questions," for the June 6, 2002, edition.

The e-journal, MusicDish, published an article entitled, "The Art of the Negro Spiritual: From Cotton Fields to Concert Hall: An Interview With Soprano/Researcher Randye Jones," on February 4, 2003. The article was based on an interview with MusicDish assistant editor Anne Freeman. To read this interview, visit MusicDish.

Thank you for visiting my Web site.

To contact me, you can reach me at:

Ms. Randye Jones
PO Box 281
Grinnell, IA USA 50112
Phone: 641/275-1481 or 202/904-3635
Fax: 641/236-5253
Email: rjones@afrodiva.com