Joan Chambers Concert Series: Shana Mashego, soprano, and Jee Sook Cha, piano

Shana Mashego and Dr. Jee Sook Cha photo montageInternationally renowned soprano Shana Mashego will present a concert featuring Negro Spirituals, Christian hymns, and Art Songs when she performs for the Joan Chambers Concert Series on Friday, February 15, at 7:30 p.m. in the Mary Lou Campana Chapel and Lecture Center (University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, 150 Finoli Drive, Greensburg, PA 15601). Mashego will be accompanied by nationally recognized pianist Jee Sook Cha, a long-time collaborator with Mashego.

The Joan Chambers Concert Series brings local, national, and international artists to the Pitt-Greensburg campus for performances of the highest caliber. It is made possible through the generous support of George F. Chambers, president emeritus of Pitt-Greensburg, and is named in honor of his late wife, Joan Chambers. Because of this support, the Joan Chambers Concert Series is free and open to the public.

“The Negro Spiritual is unbelievably important to the fiber of American music. It is known as the first American song form and speaks to the pain and the hope of the slave,” said Mashego, known as an expert interpreter of sacred song and a specialist in vocal anatomy. “These songs are internationally known and are very dear to me due to the duality of the slaves’ Christian experiences and the African melodies on which they are based. Slaves used the Scriptures that they heard being recited by their masters or at places of worship and connected them to songs based on the melodies in their hearts that came from their homes.”

Hymns, part of the English Church tradition, are also a form of global language that people from different countries recognize through the melodies and words. “For example, my husband grew up in South Africa, and I grew up in South Texas,” said Mashego. “We grew up singing the same hymns at church. The hymns performed at the concert are sung in churches worldwide—they are the ‘global glue’ of the Christian worship experience.”

Rounding out the performance will be a few of Florence Price’s Art Songs, which speak to the plight of the African American post-slavery. Jee Sook Cha also will dazzle the audience with a set of solo pieces for piano.

“This concert should not be missed because of the richness of the music we will present, and the beauty of the African American illustrated therein,” said Mashego, who earned a doctor of musical arts degree in voice and ethnomusicology from the University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ). She also earned a bachelor’s of arts degree and master’s of arts degree, both in music, from Texas Southern University (Houston, TX).

Her passion for global Christian worshipping communities and sacred vocal music infuses her career. In addition to planning worship and music for church communities where the worshipping bodies represent several ethnicities, she founded the Dr. Shana Mashego & The Sacred Ensemble, a collective of classical musicians devoted to the performance and preservation of the global Christian Hymn. Since the group’s founding in 2014 to the present, the group has produced a multi-volume collection of concerted hymns titled, “The Hymn Project” and has numerous live performances.

Mashego’s research interests includes the study of the voice, music practices of Afro-European church denominations, and music for global and non-conventional church congregations. She has numerous articles published sharing her research on the music of the African American Church, including an article in the “Encyclopedia of African American Music” (Greenwood Press), and her article, “Formality meets Hip Hop: The Influence of the Hip Hop Generation on the Music Liturgy of Euro-African Church Denominations,” included in the book, “The Black Church and Hip Hop Culture: Toward Bridging the Generational Divide” (Emmett G. Price III, ed.; Scarecrow Press).

She also facilitates The Singer’s Breath-A Vocal Anatomy Intensive, a lecture series that provides opportunities to teach singers about the inter-workings of the vocal instrument. Mashego is wife to George and mother to Miles, 21, Kamogelo, 20, and Nyakallo, 8.

Jee Sook Cha is a Korean-born concert pianist with a style of musicianship that mixes both passion and technicality. As a Korean Baptist, Cha is an expert interpreter of the Christian Hymn. Her love for God is evident in her personal and professional commitment to the Korean New Community Baptist Church of Houston (TX), where she has been serving as director of music for seven years.

She also conducts lessons of all music branches from ear-training and sight-singing to music theory at Texas Southern University, where she has performed many recitals since 2003. Cha holds the doctor of musical arts degree in piano performance from the University of California (Los Angeles) and has been the recipient of numerous performance awards including the Outstanding Performance Citation from the President of Korea and full scholarship awards for study at The University of California and University of Texas. She has performed in master classes and concert performances, both in the United States and abroad.

In addition to being a performer and educator, she is married to Dr. Dong Ho Nam. They have two daughters, Xena 19, and Mina, 16, and a son, Rayleigh, 10.

Publication Date

Thursday, January 1, 1970 - 00:00