Singers in the Chattanooga Boys Choir and the Chattanooga Choral Society for the Preservation of African American Song will join voices Sunday, Feb. 7, at 3 p.m. for the 23rd annual Simmons-O’Neal memorial concert honoring two revered Chattanooga area music educators.
The concert will be held at Westside Missionary Baptist Church. Admission is free, and an offering will be collected with proceeds divided between the two choirs' scholarship funds.
Edmonia Simmons, a public school music teacher in the Chattanooga City Schools, was a founding director of the Choral Society. Everett O'Neal was a public school music supervisor as well as longtime director of the Boys Choir. The two directors were close friends and contributed to the development of music and music education throughout the Chattanooga community.
This concert comes on the heels of an invitational performance of the Boys Choir at the Atlanta Community Choral Festival, where the boys shared the Schwartz Center (Emory University) stage with the Atlanta Master Chorale and the University of Georgia Men’s Choir. The Choral Society celebrated its 30th anniversary with a commemorative festival in the fall.
Among its musical selections, the CBC choristers will perform “Pie Jesu” by Tom Shelton, “Inscription of Hope” by Z. Randall Stroope, Andrea Ramsey’s setting of “Three Quotes By Mark Twain,” and an arrangement of the Richard Smallwood gospel anthem, “Total Praise.”
The Choral Society will feature Moses Hogan’s arrangements of the spirituals “Battle of Jericho” and “I Want to Be Ready,” as well as Jester Hairston’s setting of “Hold On” and “How Great Thou Art” by Omar Dickinson.
To close the program, the Choral Society and the Boys Choir will combine on Jester Hairston’s setting of “Amen.”