Moses hogan music
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Moses Hogan and the Anonymous Bards of African American Spirituals
I feel a sense, a responsibility, to carry on the wonderful mission of the unknown bards who created the spiritual, whom we are not privy to know their names.
--Moses Hogan
Have you listened to our Sunday morning choral program Sacred Classics? Maybe you’ve heard a few songs on your way to church or while out running errands. If so, chances are you’ve heard me play spirituals such as “The Battle of Jericho,” “Steal Away,” “Wade in the Water,” and “Great Day” performed by the Moses Hogan Singers. One of my favorite albums of spirituals features Barbara Hendricks with the Moses Hogan Singers. It’s called Give Me Jesus. Most of the songs in the collection were arranged by Moses Hogan. They have an artful sensibility and a vibrancy—at times conveyed in an intense stillness—that ennoble and make palpable the yearning and joy of the songs’ creators. And, the performances are simply stunning.
Unfortunately for me, like Franz Schubert, my days as a chorister ended when my voice broke, but
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Moses Hogan
Biography
Moses George Hogan (March 13, 1957 – February 11, 2003) was an American composer and arranger of choral music. He was best known for his settings of spirituals. Hogan was a pianist, conductor, and arranger of international renown. His works are celebrated and performed by high school, college, church, community, and professional choirs today. Over his lifetime, he published 88 arrangements for voice, eight of which were solo pieces.
Born in New Orleans, Hogan lived with five siblings and his parents, who gave their children a passion for music. He was an accomplished pianist by the age of nine. The family attended the A.L. Davis New Zion Baptist Church. Hogan's father, of the same name, was a bass singer in the church choir while Hogan's uncle, Edwin B. Hogan, was the Minister of Music and organist. His mother, Gloria Hogan, was a nurse.
Hogan was musically educated from a young age, first enrolling in Xavier University Junior School of Music. In his sophomore year of high school, he was accepted to New Orleans Center for Creative Arts High School an
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Moses Hogan Biography
Born: 1957, New Orleans, Louisiana
Died: 2003, New Orleans, Louisiana
Education: Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Ohio; Juilliard School of Music, New York and Louisiana State University, Louisiana
Moses Hogan, Turning Wheels, 1984, Oil on canvas, Gift of the artist and Roger H. Ogden
Moses Hogan was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on March 13, 1957. Moses manifested his musical talent at a young age. He anticipated the sound of church bells and guided his uncle Edwin Hogan’s choir by waving his hands as they sang. He was a graduate of the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio and he also studied at New York’s Juilliard School of Music and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Throughout his life, he created a number of new original arrangements of classic spirituals and formed several choirs such as the Moses Hogan Singers and the Moses Hogan Chorale. He also served as editor of the Oxford Book of Spirituals.
Hogan is considered the world’s greatest arranger of spiritual music. H
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