Montgomery pianist and accompanying performers stir the soul

University Relations photos

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in

Downtown Troy, people packed into

The Johnson Center for the Arts for a

score of songs sung from the soul.

Set to a full house in the Johnson

Center for the Arts, Dr. Henry Terry,

a musician and music teacher for the

Montgomery Alabama Public School

District, performed several songs

alongside both his colleagues and his

current and former students.

The goal was to celebrate Afri-

can-American music.

Throughout the two-hour run time of

the event, songs ranging from humorous

to heavy and tender to intense filled the

building all the way to its high ceilings.

All the while, Dr. Terry, with his hands

flying over the keys of his piano playing

beautiful chords, could be found leaning

back and smiling in admiration at those

performing next to him.

“It was amazing; it was moving; it

was just a beautiful afternoon of songs

from the soul,” said Shelia Jackson, a

Troy native and one of the performers

alongside Terry. “I think everybody was

touched in their soul by the music that

was given today.”

Terry said the soul is the inner place

where we all reside and to sing from

your soul is to sing from the very core

of your being, your belief and your

character.

“It’s a happy time; it’s a sad time; it’s

that place where we reside,” Terry said.

“It’s that place where we go for healing,

that place where we go for intimacy, and

especially if you’re a believer, it’s that

place where we reside with God.”

For the fourth song of the afternoon,

Jackson performed “Believe in

Yourself,” a personal favorite that she

said resonates with her.

Her voice cascaded over the audience

as she sang the lyrics “believe in

yourself as I believe in you,” drowning

the audience in beautiful emotion.

“We bring in world-class performers

from all over the world, but it’s nice

to feature those world-class perform-

ers that we have locally,” said Maggie

Hammond, the president of the Troy

Arts Council.

Between songs, Terry’s current

students came out and recited poems

written by Langston Hughes and Maya

Angelou.

“In our schools today, African

American literature is really not a focal

point,” Terry said. “Kids don’t get a

chance to really study the literature of

African Americans as they should, so

I wanted to place a lot of emphasis on

that, and make sure they were familiar

with people like Langston Hughes and

Maya Angelou as they were two of the

poets we featured today.

“It was very important for them, as

African American students, that they

keep the legacy of these poets alive by

performing their works.”

Terry related the poems to the event’s

central themes of soul and music in the

relation of the poems to the African

American spirituals – songs that slaves

would sing while they worked in

bondage.

“The spirituals, in their authentic

form, were work songs,” Terry said.

“Slaves sang those spirituals while they

were in bondage and they had to work,

and the poems depict something that

the poets thought - something they felt

- from their inner soul.”