SHE Festival Welcomes African American Song Specialist Phyllis Lewis-Hale

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Phyllis Lewis-Hale

The Department of Music welcomes Phyllis Lewis-Hale as guest for the SHE Festival of Women in Music. Lewis-Hale will give two events for the festival on Thursday, March 18, via Zoom. Both events are free and open to the public, but registration is required; links below.

3:30 p.m. — Voice Masterclass on the Negro Spiritual Repertoire - Click here to register
Students of Moon-Sook Park, Lauren Clare and Donna Rolene will perform songs from the Negro Spiritual repertoire. Lewis-Hale will provide critique, instruction and insight into the performance in a masterclass format. Audiences will enjoy the variety of music and in the intense instruction.

7 p.m. — Guest Lecture: Afro-Creole Folk Music of Louisiana and the Caribbean - Click here to register
Lewis-Hale will discuss her research on the Afro-Creole folk traditions of Louisiana and the Caribbean. This rich history of creolization plays out in the musics developed throughout the region. Lewis-Hale's interest in the song world will lend an interesting lens for music cultures known more for their instrumental musics, but her insight will show the breadth of these traditions in the 21st century.

For more information on the SHE Festival, visit fulbright.uark.edu/shefestival

About Phyllis Lewis-Hale: Lewis-Hale is assistant professor of voice and the director of Opera and Musical Theatre at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi. As an avid researcher, Lewis-Hale's efforts include the resurgence of the Negro Spiritual as a song of comfort and healing in the 21st century; identifying, preserving and performing concert adaptations of the underexplored folk songs that originated with the African slaves who were dispersed throughout the United States in the mid-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and the art songs and operas composed by African-American composers. Lewis-Hale has presented lecture/recitals at numerous colleges and universities and conferences such as the National Association of African-American Studies National Conference, the National Association of Teachers of Singing's State, Regional and National Conferences and the Super Regional and National Conferences of the College Music Society. Her most recent publication, "From Old Creole Days: Sampling the Afro-Creole Folk Song of Louisiana of the Late Nineteenth through the Twentieth Centuries," was published in the National Association of Teachers of Singing's Journal of Singing. She also presented a lecture-recital on the same topic at the 55th NATS National Conference, which was held in Las Vegas, Nevada, and at other regional and national conferences in the past several years.

Lewis-Hale received the master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the Bachelor of Music Education degree for Jackson State University. She has served as the Mississippi District governor and president of the National Association of Teachers of Singing and the Vocal Area Chair and vice president for Collegiate and National Competitions of the Mississippi Music Teachers Association. She recently received a Mississippi Humanities Council Grant in support of a project entitled From Delta Blues to Opera News: A Mississippi Musical Exposition, which will be produced in fall 2021.