History of the Spirituals Project
Although The Spirituals Project was not formally incorporated until December, 1998, the organization has its roots in activities that date back more than seven years previously. These activities included educational concert, lecture and workshop programs and the development of an educational public television documentary film. These varied activities provided the background and impetus for the establishment of The Spirituals Project as a formal educational organization.

Beginning in early 1991, Spirituals Project founder Arthur Jones and his piano accompanist Ingrid Thompson began to conduct a series of concert, lecture and workshop programs on the spirituals, which are the religious folksongs created and first sung by African Americans in slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries. The purpose of these programs was to provide education about these songs, in an effort to preserve an important American cultural treasure.
The first of these programs was presented at the Denver Museum of Natural History in February, 1991, at the invitation of the community outreach coordinator at the Museum. The program was part of the Museum's annual African American Heritage Month programming. Other programs followed, beginning in community and church settings across the Front Range of Colorado and eventually including community, church and conference settings around the country. The programs ranged from one to three hours in length, and all combined actual performance of spirituals with educational presentations on the cultural and historical significance of the spirituals tradition.


Founding of The Spirituals Project
By 1996 it was clear that there is a great need for education about the spirituals tradition and their history. With the encouragement of the initial panel of academic advisors who had been helping to develop the concepts for a documentary film, Arthur Jones founded The Spirituals Project. An enthusiastic panel of community people in Denver volunteered to serve as the Steering Committee of this organization, which was envisioned as a broad-based educational initiative to expand the work begun by Jones in the previous few years. The aim of The Spirituals Project is to both initiate and provide sponsorship for a wide program of activities which all have the goal of offering public audiences an understanding of the history and continuing cultural functions of the spirituals in the United States and abroad.

One of the first concrete results of the efforts of the new Spirituals Project was a 20-minute documentary Balm in Gilead: The Legacy of African American Spirituals, produced in collaboration with KCNC-TV Denver (CBS Affiliate) in 1997. KCNC-TV is providing complimentary videocassette copies of this program to any Colorado school (public or private, at any level) that requests it. Request for video.

Arthur Jones has continued to present concert and lecture programs, and The Spirituals Project is now recruiting additional artists, scholars and speakers as part of a pool of resource people who can be called on to do concert and lecture programs in Colorado and nationwide. The Spirituals Project has also initiated a training program to expand the pool of speakers who can do presentations in schools, churches, and a variety of other community settings. I would like to volunteer.

Currently, The Spirituals Project is engaged in the development of a historical documentary film and multi-media educational website. The initial funding for research and development on this project was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Black Programming Consortium, the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities, the University of Denver, The LEF Foundation and the Union Institute, and by fees collected by The Spirituals Project in its public programs. Current development on the multimedia website component of the project is supported by the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Denver.

One of the more visible programs of the Spirituals Project currently is a 75-voice community choir, which has been performing a schedule of concerts since 1999. Members of the choir come from all walks of life and represent a wide array of ethnic backgrounds, ages, and spiritual traditions. The choir is in great demand and has performed in many different venues in Denver and across the Front Range of Colorado. In February, 2002, the choir released its first CD. That same month, 11 members of the choir joined a mass chorus of 140 singers from around the U.S. in the New York premiere of John Kuzma's "A Balm in Gilead" (a medley of spirituals for large orchestra and chorus) at Carnegie Hall.

Since December, 1999, The Spirituals Project has been formally recognized as a non-profit, tax exempt community agency under the provisions of Section 501/c/3 of the United States Internal Revenue Service code.

Currently the Spirituals Project is located on the campus of the University of Denver, with office space and other in-kind support provided by the university. Through its informal partnership with the University of Denver, The Spirituals Project has been able to enhance its important aims as an education-centered agency.