Tapping into joy: Melanie DeMore to WITNESS with VocalEssence

For Melanie DeMore, music is not a spectator sport. On February 9 when DeMore joins VocalEssence and students from Patrick Henry High School at Orchestra Hall, audiences will join in the celebration by making music themselves. The concert is part of WITNESS, a music-focused school program VocalEssence conducts, focusing on different aspects of African-American culture and culminating in a concert each year. As this year's featured guest, DeMore brings the rhythm and music of the Gullah tradition, which originated in the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina.

"People can expect a concert like they've never been to before," DeMore said.

VocalEssence founder and artistic director Philip Brunelle first met DeMore two years ago in New York, when DeMore was giving a presentation about Gullah music. The tradition originated with slaves from Sierra Leone who, forbidden to use drums, would communicate with each other using rhythms made by pounding sticks.

Brunelle was wowed by DeMore's charisma. "People want to make music with her," he said. "An audience wants to be a part of whatever Melanie is trying to infuse them with."

Brunelle started the WITNESS program 24 years ago because he wasn't seeing anything in the Twin Cities that spoke to the choral tradition of African-Americans. Each year, the program brings important composers that work in different traditions of African-American music.

According to DeMore, she's visited elementary schools and high schools, college groups, detention centers, churches, and a homeless shelter. "I've been able to work with a huge number of people in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area, which is how I like to work," she said. "I don't like to just come and do a concert, I like to involve as many people as possible, to have that experience of pounding, making music together. It's not so much a spectator sport as much as something we get to participate in one way or another."

The first half of the program will feature the VocalEssence 130-voice choir along with students from Patrick Henry High School. Then during the second half, DeMore will get the audience singing and clapping while the choir engages in stick pounding.

DeMore said there won't be any problem getting even the shyest of audience members to participate. "All you have to do in the first few seconds is to give people permission to tap into their own joy," she said.

DeMore first discovered Gullah music when she was 18 years old and became a founding member of Linda Tillery's Cultural Heritage Choir, a percussion-driven a cappella ensemble made up of five African-American women. "Linda told me at first, 'You're going to play the stick,' and I was like, 'What does that mean?'" DeMore said. It turns out that DeMore's father's family is actually from South Carolina, and she took to the style "like it was something I always knew how to do."

Though traditionally, only a few people stick-pound at a time, in DeMore's work, she likes to get as many as people pounding as possible. Her piece "Freedom Land," which she'll perform at Orchestra Hall, "involves a massive group of people pounding," she said.

"I'm excited about getting everybody in the chorus using their bodies and creating these rhythms," said Brunelle. "It's more than just standing there and singing."

WITNESS: Stomp and Sing takes place Sunday, February 9 at 4 p.m. at Orchestra Hall. There is also a pre-concert conversation between DeMore and MPR classical music expert John Birge at 3 p.m. (John Birge will also be talking with DeMore on his Classical MPR morning show this Friday, February 7.) Tickets are available for $10 and up, with youth tickets (age 6-18) available at half price.

Sheila Regan is a Minneapolis-based writer. She writes frequently for the Twin Cities Daily Planet and City Pages, among other publications.

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