‘Spirit, Body and Soul’ from Dr. David Berry out now on all major streaming platforms
A new album of original compositions from Dr. David Berry, associate professor of music and chair of the music department at EMU, brings the melodies of African American spirituals into the classical piano tradition.
The album, Spirit, Body and Soul: Concert Spirituals for Solo Piano, was released Sept. 4 through the Grammy Award-winning Navona Records label. It is available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.
The nine-track album features Berry’s solo piano compositions based on beloved spirituals such as “Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho,” “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” “Go Down, Moses,” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” as well as a special improvisation on “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
“These are songs I’ve known practically my whole life,” Berry said. “All of this music has deep meaning for me, and so it’s definitely been an engaging and emotional process writing these pieces, contemplating the lyrics of these spirituals, and interpreting them in sound.”
Berry began working on the project in November, shortly before his sabbatical last semester. He had already written several of the pieces for recitals and other performances at EMU and seen how popular they were. When people began asking where they could find recordings of his reimagined spirituals, he saw an opportunity to turn them into his solo debut album. He recorded the tracks in January at GBH Fraser Performance Studio in Boston.
Berry’s style, praised as “touchingly introspective” by Gramophone, blends the power, sweep, and virtuosity of the classical piano tradition with elements of various Black music styles, according to the album’s description.
“These songs came organically from my soul and from all the music that lives in me,” Berry said. “You hear the influences of composers like Liszt and Rachmaninoff, but you also hear the sound of the blues, of gospel music, and jazz.”
The result, Berry said, is “a human journey of emotion.”
“Those feelings we carry with us of perseverance through adversity, sorrow, grief, joy, isolation, community, all of those things,” he said. “Every sort of feeling you can imagine is in these spirituals. And that’s what the title tries to encapsulate: Spirit, Body and Soul. Those are the ingredients for this project.”
Album release concert
An album release concert on Friday, Oct. 2, at 7 p.m. at EMU’s Lehman Auditorium will feature Berry’s piano compositions alongside vocal performances from local singers he has worked with in the Harrisonburg area.
This concert is sponsored by Yamaha Music USA, who will be providing a special Yamaha CSX 9-foot concert grand piano for the concert in collaboration with Downtown Piano Works of Frederick, Maryland.
“It’ll be a fun celebration of my work as an artist, but also of how this project was birthed through this community,” he said.
Berry plans to release the sheet music for his compositions at davidberrypiano.com.
For more information about the album, visit navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6898.
Hear Dr. Berry talk about the inspiration behind “Spirit, Body and Soul.”
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