They combined elements of their masters' church services with experiences of slavery and passages from the Bible into music that illustrates biblical messages. These are narrative songs, sung a capella, without the upbeat rhythm that would later infuse the Gospel and Jazz traditions. In 1994, Vincent Dion Stringer, professional opera singer and voice coach, founded the New England Spiritual Ensemble, one of a handful of professional spiritual singing groups in the country, because as he got older he heard fewer and fewer of the classic Negro spirituals. Since its inception, the all African-American ensemble has learned a repertoire of spirituals and has grown to a dozen members including five teachers, two doctors, the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Director of Education, and a Roxbury District Court Judge. Below are excerpts from transcripts of interviews with Vincent Dion Stringer and Beverly Joyce Mosby in which they discuss the Negro spiritual's history , its form , and how the spiritual is being preserved today .
Spirituals go back to the slavery experience in America.
You can't trace them to a particular person or place. They're songs that were created by many people. They are songs that reflected the experience that the slaves had in their religious experience, in their master's churches. And music that was created during their work experience. The spirituals started not just because of oppression, but because the African was also a person who had music in his life.