Wednesday, Nov 18, 2009
The Westminster Jubilee Singers, conducted by J. Donald Dumpson, will present a concert entitled We Need One Another on Sunday, November 22, at 7:30 p.m. in Bristol Chapel on the campus of Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton.
The program will feature inspirational songs that will inspire listeners to love and care for each other more compassionately. It will include traditional and contemporary gospel music and spirituals and arrangements by Bill Withers, Moses Hogan, Hezekiah Walker, J. Donald Dumpson and more. The ensemble will be joined by soprano Deborah Ford.
The Westminster Jubilee Singers is a multicultural, multiracial and interdenominational intimate choral ensemble composed of students from Westminster Choir College who are selected by audition. Part of Westminster’s Department of Sacred Music, the ensemble is modeled after the historically acclaimed Fisk Jubilee Singers. Its repertoire, while specialized and select, is very diverse. Its repertoire includes African-American spirituals and folk songs, classical music by African-American composers, African chants and dances, and gospel music and secular songs.
J. Donald Dumpson is active as an educator, master keyboardist, conductor, vocal coach, composer and arranger as well as a clinician and production administrator. He is also president of the entertainment production company J. Donald Dumpson Productions. In addition, he is minister of music at Bright Hope Baptist Church, whose Bright Hope Celestial Choir he has taken from the church sanctuary to television and Broadway.
Since her professional debut at Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1985, critical accolades have become the norm for Deborah Ford. She has received recognition as winner of the New Jersey State Opera Competition and as the first prize-winner of the prestigious American Institute of Musical Studies Competition in Graz, Austria. Most recently she won first place in the Savannah On Stage Vocal Competition in Savannah, Ga.
Westminster Choir College is located at Hamilton Avenue and Walnut Lane in Princeton. Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for students and seniors. To purchase tickets call the box office at 609-921-2663 or go to www.rider.edu/arts.