News & Showcase
17th Annual World-Premiere Weekend Event. Special Thanks to everyone that supported this years World-Premiere Weekend Events. Please select read more to find photos for the all the weekend events.
NSSF: Teachers
Membership
Annual Funding Friend Membership: You can help by enrolling in our annual Funding Friend program. Visit our donations page to enroll and pay immediately using a credit/debit card. To pay by check please print out and mail in this pdf: Funding Friend Membership.pdf The Foundation is a 501(c) 3 non-profit agency, so your membership gift [...]
Outreach
The “Negro Spiritual” Scholarship Foundation exists to guard and preserve the heritage, beauty and grace of a uniquely American art form: the spiritual arranged for solo voice and piano. To achieve this goal we focus on cultural development by reaching out to provide opportunities for learning to our young people, to music professionals, and to [...]
Calendar of Events
Our “NS”SF annual calendar of events showcases the enormous talent of our professional and student artists, gathers patrons and supporters for fellowship around our cause, and introduces our programs to new friends. We use these occasions to advance the values that are fundamental to fulfilling our mission: *TO PRESERVE AND PROMOTE THE HERITAGE OF ARRANGED [...]
History & Reference
The Foundation is amassing and archiving materials that help to portray the cultural significance of the Negro spiritual song, as well as items that describe the historical value of this important American national treasure. Artifacts, personal writings, published articles and essays, and musical memorabilia of all kind are desired. Please consider donating any spirituals-related items [...]
Support And Volunteer Opportunities
The Foundation has a small but effective paid team of three full-time and one part-time staff members, who depend upon the generous help given us by volunteers contributing time and expertise in support of our programs in any of several roles: Board Members (business persons or private citizens) govern/guide the agency Office Helpers provide clerical [...]
Music & More
The Foundation maintains our Dorothy T. Johnson Library of scored manuscripts, audio recordings and songbooks as a repository to house the Roland M. Carter Collection (treatments of arranged Negro spirituals including the GRADY-RAYAM Series of spirituals set for solo voice and piano) and the Edna S. Hargrett-Thrower Collection (treatments drawn from all other genres, many [...]
College Bound
Central to the Foundation’s mission is helping young people make a successful transition from high school to a college campus. We counsel every student who participates in our GRADY-RAYAM PRIZE competitions (and their parents) on college selection and application. We track the college-bound progress of GRAYAM-RAYAM PRIZE winners and, because we require them to be [...]
Singer Development
The Foundation is committed to providing music education opportunities to senior high and post-secondary singers, especially those hoping to grow in their appreciation of the Negro spiritual song genre. We operate our Robert Williams Ph.D. Music Studio for voice or piano lessons, vocal coaching in advance of concert or recital performance, and tutoring in music [...]
Competition
The “Negro Spiritual” Scholarship Foundation sponsors a vocal competition for sacred music performed by the solo voice in characteristic Negro spiritual style. Senior high school students of eleventh or twelfth grade level may enter a district wide vocal competition in Bahama Islands Region, Capital Region (Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia), Florida Region, Mid-South [...]
