THE JUBILEE ENSEMBLE
The Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers , a traveling company of 12 to 15, a resident group of 29, have garnered international acclaim and focused worldwide attention on the vast body of folk music termed "African-American."
Over 40 years ago (1968) the Singers undertook their first European tour. Today, after 18 sold-out European tours, 12 tours of the United States and Canada, tours of the Middle and Far East, Africa and South America, they are among the most honored singing ensembles in the world. They were selected three times to serve the U.S. State Department and USIS Cultural Exchange Program in areas of the world, known in those days as "behind the Iron Curtain," including East Germany, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Iran, India, North and West Africa, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates.
Founder-Director Albert McNeil is well-known to the national choral community, having been honored on four occasions with "Command Performances" before the prestigious American Choral Directors Association in 1981 in New Orleans, in 1985 at their Salt Lake City Convention, at their 1997 convention in San Diego, California, in February, 2000, at Los Angeles during the ACDA Western Division Convention held on the campus of Loyola-Marymount University. The Singers were headliners at the First Choral Festival in Jaffe (yafo), Israel, in April, 1988. In 1989, on Martin Luther King Sunday, they performed with the world-famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir on the program aired by CBS Radio and Television. They have had collaborative concerts with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Dale Warland Singers, Chanticleer, the Vancouver Chamber Choir, and Pro Musica of El Paso. In the summer of 1992, The Singers made their first Far East Tour of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. That season they went on to Spain to complete concerts at the XXIII Semana de Musica de Camara in Segovia, in the Real Coliseo Carlos III in El Escorial, performing not only their regular fare of Spirituals, but the Siglo de Oro Espanol (Renaissance music of Victoria and Morales).
The Singers completed a six-week tour of Europe during the Winter of 1993 and culminated their Winter Concert Season with a performance in the Auditorium of the Ambassador College, Pasadena. Fall, 1993, found the Singers performing in the midwestern U.S. and Toronto, Canada. The Winter Tour, 1994, took them to their first presentation in San Juan, Puerto Rico, their first in the Caribbean.
The choir was heard via National Public Radio on the series "Beverly Sills Presents" , a live two-hour broadcast of their concert in the Ambassador Auditorium, and shortly after on The Smithsonian's twenty-six-week series "Wade in the Water."
During its 1995 Winter Tour of the east coast, the Singers made their debut at The Kennedy Center , January 26, 1995, and continued on to complete an eight-week tour of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and France, stopping to perform in Paris' historic Eglise Saint Germain Des Pres, Munich's Herkulessaal, Monte Carlo's Concert Hall, and Bremen's St. Petri Dom (before 2,000 cheering enthusiasts). The Singers completed tours of the U.S., Italy and Spain in the Winter and Spring of 1996. In August, 1996, they were featured in The International Choral Festival in Taipei, Taiwan . The Singers are so popular in Japan that they appeared there successively in 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999, and returned in the Fall of 2002.
Early in 1998, the Singers performed in concert version excerpts from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with the Honolulu Symphony, returning to Honolulu after an exciting tour of the Big Island of Hawaii, and Kauai, to a sold-out audience in the recently renovated Hawaii Theatre. During their winter tour, they were invited to record a program for the award-winning radio program "Saint Paul Sunday Morning" aired via National Public Raldio and heard in virtually every state in the country. The program generated hundreds of letters from across the country and Canada. The Men of the Jubilee Singers appeared on New Year's Eve, 1998, before a worldwide TV audience emanating from Shanghai, China, and heralding China's greeting of the new millennium. In January, 1999, the Singers appeared in Carnegie Hall for Mid-America Productions where they sang works by Nunes-Garcia and Lawrence Farrow. They returned in the Spring of 1999 to Argentina and Uruguay for a series of concerts. The season 1999 concluded with their fourth tour of Japan with a performance at the beautiful Osaka Symphony Hall, and finally Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). During the 1999 European tour, they performed in Austria's prestigious Mozarteum (Salzburg) and Switzerland's new concert hall in Zurich, The Kultureise . Spring, 2000, they completed yet another tour of Spain with a major concert in the National Recital Hall, Madrid . In July, 2000, they gave a major performance in the John Anson Ford Theatre, Los Angeles, and were invited again to represent North America in Taipei, Taiwan, at the International Choral Festival. They performed for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and the Montgomery County Community College in February, 2001. The 2000-2001 season concluded with performances in St. John's Cathedral in Denver, Colorado, Bethel College in Newton, Kansas, and concert performances of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with the Pasadena "Pops" Orchestra, Pasadena, California. The 2001-2002 season opened with a tour of Brazil in November, 2001, with major performances in Sao Paulo, Brasilia, and Rio. In January 2002, the Singers began an East Coast Tour commencing in Philadelphia and ending in Atlanta's Spivey Hall (on the Clayton State College Campus). Despite the cold of March, 2002 the Singers began a three-week tour in Denver and performed in seven mid-western states (Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota) In October, the Singers returned to Japan for their fifth tour of the land of the rising sun. A return to Spain in November 2002, closed the season with return performances in The National Recital Hall, Madrid; Barcelona's Palau de Musica , and a debut performance in Las Palmas' magnificent concert hall on the Gran Canarias, one of the seven islands in the Canary Islands over seven hundred miles off the coast of Morocco.
The ACDA Western Division honored the Jubilee Singers and Dr. McNeil in
"Command Performances" at their Las Vegas Convention in February, 2004. The American Embassy in Caracas,Venezuela, supported McNeil and his Jubilee Singers as participants in an International Choral Festival held there during the Memorial Day weekend, May 27 through 31, 2004.
The Jubilee Singers will leave completed their 14th tour of Spain on November 28, 2004. On December 19th, 2004 the Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers performed to a sold out audience at Davies Symphony Hal l as a part of the San Francisco Symphony's holiday concert series.
In between 2004 and the present, Dr. McNeil and the Singers have performed on the stage of the Cueves de Nerja, (the Caves of Nerja, Spain) a cave transformed into a performance venue. A highlight for 2007 was a home town performance with the Los Angeles Master Chorale of Jazz Great, Mary Lou Williams’ composition, The Mary Lou Williams Mass, under the baton of Grant Gershon and the Luckman Jazz Orchestra at LA's Disney Hall. The Singers have recently returned from a European tour with performances in Austria, Germany and Switzerland in December of 2008.
2009 will be a year-long celebration of 40 Years of Jubilee Singers, with performances around the city, state, and out of the country.
About the Music
The repertory of The Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers is focused on the rich genre of African-American music known as Negro Spirituals. The arranged spiritual became known in the Winter of 1870 when an intrepid group of 11 singers -- seven women and four men -- representing the newly-established Fisk University in Nashville appeared at the Court of St. James in London. Queen Victoria's immediate acceptance helped this a cappella four-part singing by an ensemble of students to become known worldwide as a creative religious music evoking a deep sense of personal spiritual fervor.
About Dr. McNeil - Founder/Director
Dr. Albert J. Mcneil
Albert McNeil is a native Californian -- born in Los Angeles. He earned Bachelor and Master degrees at the University of California, Los Angeles, and did his doctoral studies at the University of Southern California, the Westminster Choir College of Princeton, and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He is presently Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of California at Davis, where he was Director of Choral Activities for 21 years and headed the Music Education Program. Simultaneous with the Davis period, he taught Ethnomusicology at the University of Southern California for 12 years. Prior to his University teaching, McNeil taught in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 17 years beginning at the elementary level and including junior highs, and ended his tenure in the district at the Susan Miller Dorsey High School where he headed a multi-school program known as APEX, Area Project for Educational Exchange involving five High Schools in a unique federally funded experimental program with each high school specializing in unique course offerings.
The McNeil Jubilee Singers ensemble is his creation, and he has dedicated himself to upholding a choral tradition of excellence with the presentation of the concert spiritual and the ever-increasing contributions of African American Composers of Concert Music, Opera, and theatre music. Under his direction, the group, now in its 40th year, has performed in over 70 countries, including Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, and North and West Africa. During the summer of 1997 they completed their third tour of South America after numerous transcontinental tours of the U.S., Hawaii, and Canada.
In addition to his work at the University and conducting the Jubilee Singers, Professor McNeil has been an author and editor on a series of music education textbooks for Silver-Burdett-Ginn Publishing Company. He co-authored an educational packet for Bowman Publishing Company as well. His arrangements can be found in the Gentry and Lawson-Gould catalogues.
McNeil was been called out of retirement in Spring, 2007 as acting Director of Choral Activities at the University of California, Davis. He is in demand as an adjudicator and clinician and is often invited to conduct "honor choirs" throughout the United States and abroad. In January 1993, he was a Headliner at the Eleventh Annual Federation for Choral Music in Seoul, Korea, and in August, 1993, he presented the sessions on African American Spirituals and Art Songs at the World Symposium on Choral Music in Vancouver B.C. He repeated similar sessions with his Jubilee Singers in Rotterdam in July, 1999. In July 1994, he was Guest Conductor at the DeKalb International Choral Festival held at Stone Mountain, Georgia. In 1995, he conducted the World Youth Choir in their 1995 tour of Canada and North America and in November of 1995 he was appointed vocal director/conductor of the 40th Annual Christmas Candlelight Procession at Disneyland. In August of 1996, he and his Jubilee Singers were among the five choirs appearing at the International Choral Festival in Taipei, Taiwan. He returned with his Jubilee Singers in July, 2000, as Lecturer and Conductor. He is Guest Conductor on the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's "An American Heritage of Spirituals”, a CD released in January 1997. January, 1998, the Singers made their first tour of the Hawaiian Islands, with special performances with the Honolulu Symphony of the concert version of "Porgy and Bess" and a command performance in the recently renovated Hawaii Theatre. He followed this engagement with sessions as Guest Director and Lecturer with the Canadian Choral Conductors in Halifax, Nova Scotia. A year later, January, 1999, McNeil made his debut in Carnegie Hall with the Jubilee Singers and choruses from Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. McNeil's guest conducting assignments during 1999-2000 included the Holland Festival (Michigan), the Heartland Chamber Ensemble (Ft. Wayne, Indiana), as headliner before the Choral Conductor's Guild Convention 2000 (Pasadena, CA), Association of Church Musicians and the Schola Cantorum (Palo Alto, CA). McNeil's second performance in Carnegie Hall (June, 2001) featured the music of Jester Hairston and celebrated the late composer's 100th birthday with a choir of 219 singers from throughout California. He was one of the conductors who appeared with the 300-voice Children's Choir at the Des Moines International Children's Choral Festival, known also, as "Song Burst!", July 4 - 7, 2001. McNeil appeared as a presenter at America Cantat IV (a collaborative Choral experience involving hundreds of choirs from the Western Hemisphere) held in Mexico City April 5 – 14, 2004 and under the supervision of Fundacion Coral Mexico, A.C.
He appeared at Point Loma University, San Diego, as clinician and workshop leader at the University’s February, 2002, Annual Choral event. In May, 2002, McNeil conducted Pasadena Presbyterian Church’s Inaugural Multi-Cultural Festival after having organized and developed Founder’s Church’s International Choral Festival on Cinco de Mayo. This festival now in its ninth year has attracted over 1300 choristers and brought choirs to the Los Angeles area from as far off as San Diego and Santa Barbara. McNeil with selected members of the Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers conducted daily educational presentations as a part of the Hollywood Bowl summer music offerings for children K through 5 during July, 2002.
Notable among his many awards are: Alumnus of the Year for Professional Excellence presented by his alma mater, UCLA, and the Michael Korn Award for distinguished conducting (Chorus America--Association of Professional Ensembles). He has the honor of being selected a Sterling Patron of Mu Phi Epsilon. The California State University Board of Trustees on May 28, 2003, conferred the honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree upon McNeil at the Summer, 2003, commencement exercises held on the campus of California State University, Northridge. He also delivered the commencement address at that time. The ACDA Western Division honored both the Jubilee Singers and Dr. McNeil in “command performances” at their Las Vegas Convention in February, 2004, where he received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding contribution to Choral Music. Professor McNeil’s 2005 schedule included another appearance before the National ACDA Convention in Los Angeles, and a headline performance at the Bilbao International Film Festival in November, and an Encore performance of Dr. McNeil at Davies Hall, San Francisco in December. McNeil lead his Singers at the L. A. Holiday Celebration on Christmas Eve, 2005 and again in 2006, 2007 & 2008. He received a lifetime achievement award in July, 2007 from the National Association of Church Musicians at their summer conference in Camarillo, California. 2008-09 included run-out concerts to Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and a host of concerts prior to their 17th tour of Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Germany, with several dates in Spain during the holiday period.
Professor McNeil is on the boards of the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Neighborhood Music School. He holds “Honorary membership” in the Society of Puerto Rican Choral Directors, and received an award from the Association of Choral Singers from the National Choir of the Dominican Republic after a series of concerts there in 1995. He is a life member of the American Choral Directors Association and the National Association of Negro Musicians. He was a Member of the Board of Directors of Chorus America, 1988-1997.