![\"Tony](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/GULLAH-11.jpg\")
<\/a>Frankie Quimby, who leads the group, says the musicians have traveled around the world performing not just to provide entertainment but also to keep alive the authentic sound of their culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more you teach the way it was done, it will be alive,\u201d she says from her home in Georgia. \u201cIf you don\u2019t, it will die. I\u2019m a firm believer in that. Sometimes things get lost.\u201d<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t know where you\u2019re going until you know where you\u2019ve come from. It\u2019s our culture; it\u2019s everybody\u2019s culture. — Frankie Quimby, leader, Georgia Sea Island Singers<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Traveling to Storrs to perform is part of a connection the Georgia Sea Island Singers established with the University in 2013, when the group was part of a teacher education program focused on Gullah culture developed by Robert Stephens and Mary Ellen Junda, professors of music in the School of Fine Arts, under a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant. The program, which was held in Savannah, Ga., attracted 80 elementary and high school teachers for two one-week sessions on the history of the Gullah people explored through the arts.<\/p>\n
Quimby says Stephens and Junda are building on the work of Alan Lomax, the musicologist and record producer who traveled throughout the United States recording folk musicians for the Archive of the American Folk Song at the Library of Congress.<\/p>\n
\u201cMary Ellen and Bob want it to be done right,\u201d Quimby says. \u201cWe who love [the music] want it to be authentic. It will get lost if we don\u2019t. It touches my heart and pleases me. We don\u2019t want it to die.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Georgia Sea Island Singers will perform along with the UConn vocal ensemble Earthtones, a group of students in a music and culture class in the School of Fine Arts, and Voices of Freedom, which is focused on gospel and spiritual music of the Black Experience Church.<\/p>\n
Jillian Dicks, a graduate student in choral conducting, says the students in Earthtones were challenged in learning music they did not know.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re coming from a more traditional, classical Western background with pop and hip-hop,\u201d Dicks says. \u201cIt\u2019s been challenging from a historical background and a practical background of how this music is supposed to sound. They\u2019re used to sheet music and having direction, versus an oral tradition of improvising and feeling the music that\u2019s full of movement. They\u2019ve risen to the challenge in amazing ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Junda says each semester the Earthtones vocal ensemble focuses on learning the music of a new culture in depth, under the guidance of a master teacher from the culture. Previous classes have covered the music of the Civil Rights Movement and of Trinidad and Tobago.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week during a rehearsal of Gullah songs by Earthtones,<\/em> Junda called Quimby so she could hear the students in her class \u2013 nine undergraduate students, three graduate students, and two community members \u2013 singing over the phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey did a good job,\u201d Quimby said. \u201cI was impressed. That\u2019s another generation that could carry [the tradition] and hand it down.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Georgia Sea Island Singers will continue their relationship with UConn next summer when Junda and Stephens will conduct another two weeks of teacher workshops in Georgia in July, thanks to a new $180,000 grant under the NEH Landmarks of American History Program.<\/p>\n
Junda says the 2013 program drew an overwhelmingly favorable response from the teachers who participated in the program, which included presentations by both academic scholars and cultural historians.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the teachers enjoyed was learning history and culture through the arts,\u201d Junda says. \u201cIt\u2019s very meaningful to them not only to have performances of the material \u2013 like the music this weekend in Storrs \u2013 but explanations of why it\u2019s endured for over 200 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quimby agrees: \u201cYou don\u2019t know where you\u2019re going until you know where you\u2019ve come from. It\u2019s our culture; it\u2019s everybody\u2019s culture. The younger people need to know, and people need to be aware of how it actually happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information about the Georgia Sea Island Singers performance on campus, go to the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts website<\/a>.<\/p>\n