URSULINE SCHOOL CHOIR PERFORMS GOSPEL SPIRITUALS

The Ursuline School Honor Choir with Abyssinian Baptist Church La Fredrick Coaxner and church keyboardist Damon Mack.

As part of a special program on Feb. 3, students at the Ursuline School in New Rochelle performed Gospel spirituals for Black History Month.

Under the direction of La Fredrick Coaxner, the choir director at Harlem”™s famed Abyssinian Baptist Church; the girls own choir director Wendy Bryn Harmer, a soprano with the Metropolitan Opera; Damon Mack on keyboard; singer Carl Arnez Ellis III; and soloist Ahmaya Knoelle Higginson, the choir performed “Freedom Songs” or “Code Songs,” which slaves used to communicate with one another when they were preparing to run away.

“I was a little nervous at first of how receptive they would be, but we were having rehearsal one day and all of a sudden an energy came into the room and it was as if we were in a Baptist church service,” Coaxner said in an interview with CBS News after the performance.

The Black History performance was organized by Tamisha Chestnut, who was recently brought on as the school”™s director of diversity, equity and inclusion.