WILMINGTON — UNCW’s Kenan Auditorium will welcome the world-renowned Fisk Jubilee Singers on Friday, Feb. 20, at 7:30 p.m.
For more than 150 years, the vocal ensemble has performed and preserved Negro spirituals that originated among enslaved people before the Civil War. Born from resilience, faith, and hope, the ensemble’s rich harmonies represent a living tradition of American musical history.
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Fisk University opened in Nashville in 1866 as the first American university to offer a liberal arts education to students regardless of race. Just five years later, facing severe financial hardship, music professor George L. White formed a nine-member student choral ensemble to tour and raise funds for the institution. The group departed campus on Oct. 6, 1871 — a date now celebrated annually as Jubilee Day.
The ensemble took the name “The Jubilee Singers” from the Bible’s “year of Jubilee,” a term representing hope and a fresh start. In their early years, the singers faced shocked and sometimes angry audiences because they refused to perform the exaggerated, mocking “minstrel” shows popular at the time. However, their talent prevailed, leading to an invitation to sing for President Ulysses S. Grant at the White House in 1872.
Today, the Fisk Jubilee Singers continue as a vocal ensemble, touring internationally. Still made up of Fisk University students, the group won a Grammy in 2021 for Best Roots Gospel Album, “Celebrating Fisk! (The 150th Anniversary Album).” Recorded live in Nashville, the album features collaborations with artists like CeCe Winans and Rodney Atkins as a modern tribute to the ensemble’s past.
Tickets for the group’s February performance are available online or by calling the Kenan Auditorium Box Office.
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