Jeraldine Saunders Herbison
About
In addition to being known as a composer of art songs, symphonic works, and instrumental chamber music, Jeraldine Saunders Herbison is also an experienced violinist and teacher of strings and orchestral studies in the public schools. While completing her Bachelor of Science degree at Virginia State College in Petersburg in Music Education, she majored in violin and minored in both piano and voice. An active performer, she continues to play in the first violin section of the York River Symphony in Yorktown, Virginia. After a thirty-four year public school teaching career, Herbison retired in 1998 from Newport News Public Schools. She taught both applied strings and conducted student orchestras during her teaching career in Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia. Many of her cello works were written for her husband, the late Dr. James P. Herbison, who was both cellist in the Virginia Symphony and a music faculty member at Hampton University. Herbison’s rich musical background, training, and work as a performer inform her compositions.
– Bethany Worrell
This profile was created in 2021 as part of The Savvy Singer, an EXCEL Lab course at the University of Michigan, School of Music, Theatre, and Dance and a collaboration with the Hampsong Foundation via the Classic Song Research Initiative.
Bibliography:
African Art Song Alliance. “Jeraldine Saunders Herbison.” Accessed September 21, 2021. https://artsongalliance.org/composers/jeraldine–saunders-herbison.
African Diaspora Music Project. “Jeraldine S. Herbison.” Accessed September 21, 2021. http://africandiasporamusicproject.org/jeraldine_herbison.
Artsong Update. “Reviews: An Evening with Composer Jeraldine Herbison.” Accessed September 21, 2021. https://www.artsongupdate.org/Reviews/Artists/JeraldineHerbison.htm.
Related Information
African Diaspora Music Project
africandiasporamusicproject.org/compser/jeraldine-s-herbisonThe African American Art Song Alliance
artsongalliance.org/composers/jeraldine--saunders-herbisonSongs
Records
2000
You Can Tell the World : Songs by African-American Women Composers
Florence Price, Julia Perry, Zenobia Powell Perry, Betty Jackson King, Margaret Bonds
Books
From Spirituals to Symphonies: African-American Women Composers and Their Music
Helen Walker-Hill
Sheet Music
An Anthology of African and African Diaspora Songs – 60 Songs
Christmas Lullaby (H. Leslie Adams)
Sence You Went Away (H. Leslie Adams)
The Heart of a Woman (H. Leslie Adams)
The Alarm Clock (David N. Baker)
The Negro Speaks of Rivers (Margaret Bonds)
Caring (Charles Brown)
Desire (Charles Brown)
Your Eyes So Deep (H. T. Burleigh)
Your Lips Are Wine (H. T. Burleigh)
Autumn (Valerie Capers)
Elëanore (Samuel Coleridge-Taylor)
The Willow Song (Samuel Coleridge-Taylor)
Minakesh (Arthur Cunningham)
Stars (Harriette Davison Watkins)
Out in the Fields (William Dawson)
The Refused (Mark Fax)
With Rue My Heart Is Laden (Bruce Forsythe)
Suspiro d’alma (Antônio Carlos Gomes)
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking (Adolphus Hailstork)
Longing (Adolphus Hailstork)
Loveliest of Trees (Adolphus Hailstork)
Dormi, Jesu (Jacqueline Hairston)
Gardé Piti Mulet Là (Maud Cuney Hare)
I’ll Not Forget (Jeraldine Herbison)
Little Elegy (Jonathan Holland)
In Time of Silver Rain (Sylvia Hollifield)
The Founding Fathers (Langston Hughes)
This is My Land (Langston Hughes)
L’il Gal (J. Rosamond Johnson)
Soliloquy (Thomas Kerr)
Amazing Grace (Lena McLin)
The Year’s at the Spring (Lena McLin)
I Am in Doubt (Undine Smith Moore)
I Want to Die While You Love Me (Undine Smith Moore)
For a Poet (Andre Myers)
Chere, Mo Lemmé Toi (Camille Nickerson)
Gué, Gué, Solingaie (Camille Nickerson)
Mshila (Fred Onovwerosuoke)
Entreaty (I Am the Rose of Sharon) (Eurydice Osterman)
Could I but Ride Indefinite (Robert Owens)
Die Nacht (Robert Owens)
From the Dark Tower (Robert Owens)
The Lynching (Robert Owens)
The Secret (Robert Owens)
Madrigal (Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson)
O Children of Men (Zenobia Powell Perry)
I Want to Die While You Love Me (Rosephanye Powell)
Spring (Florence Price)
The Sum (Florence Price)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (Dave Ragland)
Mangez, Boulez (Eat, Drink, Be Merry) (Nadine Shanti)
Prayer (Carlos Simon)
Troubled Woman (Hale Smith)
Why Fades a Dream? (Irene Britton Smith)
Dream Variations (Brandon Spencer)
Spring Song (Hilbert Stewart)
One Day (Howard Swanson)
I Went to Heaven (George Walker)
Norris Swamp (Aurelia Young)