Detroit composer, former cathedral music director's orchestral work evokes powerful emotion of African American spirituals
DETROIT — If you strolled through Norah Duncan IV’s Detroit household in the 1960s, you were likely to hear music.
Growing up, the Detroit composer remembers regularly sitting on his front porch “annoying the neighbors” by fiddling with an accordion, or the sophisticated swing of Duke Ellington blaring out the windows. But mostly, he remembers the spirituals his mother sang — melodies that became the foundational soundtrack to his childhood.
Decades later, during a creative sabbatical in 2023, those early memories became the wellspring for his most ambitious work yet: "JOURNEY: From Slavery to Freedom," a choral-orchestral cantata of nine spirituals.
Duncan has been a pillar of the Detroit musical community for decades. A former professor and music department chair at Wayne State University, Duncan also served for 26 years as music director for the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament, including during the historic 1987 visit of Pope St. John Paul II. He has a library of compositions, including many works published by GIA Publications, as well as the widely used "Unity Mass."
However, “Journey” represents a departure from the liturgical settings for which he’s more widely known.
“When I was just starting, I had this conceptual feeling that I wanted to evoke that spirituals have — the progression from something that was rather sorrowful to something that was joyful,” Duncan told Detroit Catholic.
Writing a piece this ambitious required Duncan to weave history into a harmonious narrative. To mirror the historical movement from bondage to liberation, he incorporated a vibrant tapestry of sounds: blues, jazz, afrobeats, pop, and indigenous percussion. While the cantata moves from slavery to freedom through the course of the nine evocative spirituals, there’s a stylistic progression as well.
“I wanted to reflect the evolution of common musical styles throughout African American tradition,” Duncan explained.
The emotional weight of the work is immediate. The second movement, “Watch and Pray” opens with a haunting question: “Mama, is master going to sell us tomorrow?” The only answer provided is the rhythmic, persistent call to watch and pray.
“That was all that was possible for slaves to do at that time — simply be vigilant and pray,” Duncan said. “It’s a profound, simple text.”
The piece demands “active listening” — Duncan doesn’t want this to be a performance where the audience just sits back and listens, but rather, “leans in” to a shared experience of collective presence. He wants the audience to walk away convicted by the words.
The world premiere took place on Nov. 16, 2025, at the Macomb Center for the Performing Arts, under the baton of Andrew Neer, a fellow composer at Wayne State and former member of Duncan’s Men’s Glee Club.
“It was exactly the kind of impact I wanted,” Duncan said of the premiere. “People were very, very moved by the lyrics.”
The Detroit premiere of “Journey” with can be heard on May 31 at 4 p.m. at St. Clare of Montefalco in Grosse Pointe Park. Tickets can be purchased here.
The cantata navigates the listener through the deepest parts of the experience of slavery — from the soprano lament, "Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child," to the longing of "Deep River." Anticipation mounts through "I Am Seeking for a City" before culminating in "Great Day." Duncan leads the listener out of darkness into the light.
“Everything in the text moves us through the whole piece from sorrow to joy,” Duncan said. “I get them in perhaps the deepest part of their emotional being, and then I bring them into the light. People who have seen it and heard it understand the message: that we are all responsible for the conditions of the world.”
Duncan hopes his audience walks away with a renewed sense of purpose:
“That they do whatever they can to ensure the dark conditions of slavery never return," he said. "We are all charged with the responsibility to overcome the atrocities that people are experiencing, even today.”
Duncan is filled with profound gratitude to see this opus materialize, a reality that a young Duncan would have found laughably unlikely.
“I think about my humble beginnings, this African American inner-city kid with an accordion, self-taught, riding his sister’s bike around Wayne State University," Duncan reflected. "How would he ever rise to the ranks of becoming a full professor and chair of the music department? I mean, opportunities to go perform in Europe, Africa, play for Pope John Paul II? Play for an arena with 100,000 people? It never would have happened but for the grace of God.”
