Music professor makes Carnegie Hall debut

by Mark McGowan

By next February, Robert Sims figures he can put into exact words the thrill he felt eight days ago as he made his debut at the legendary Carnegie Hall.

“I think I will be able to reflect on it maybe a year from now,” said Sims, who joined the NIU School of Music faculty in 1994. “It was a lot of hard work, but it was exciting. I was concentrating so much on the mechanics of making it happen and performing well – more so than thinking, ‘This is Carnegie Hall!’ Any time one performs in New York City, and especially at Carnegie, the pressure is on. The amount of love and support from the audience really made the occasion.”

Sims said a full house packed Carnegie’s new Zankel Hall for the Feb. 6 concert, the first time that stage has played host to African-American spirituals and folk traditions.

More than 200 members of the audience flew to New York City for the event, he said, and the harpist who played on a composition by retired NIU music professor Jan Bach caught a flight from China.

The highlights of the concert were three spirituals where Sims was accompanied on percussion by Rich Holly, associate dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, and his duet with legendary folk singer Odetta, whose 1956 album “Odetta Sings Ballads & Blues” inspired Bob Dylan.

“There are only a few women in the world known in this business by one name,” Sims said. “Cher, Madonna and Odetta.”

Sims, trained in opera, theater and classical music, teaches his NIU students the works of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. His performances of African-American spirituals and folk honor his roots.

“It’s my heritage,” Sims said, “and what is so interesting in academic institutions is that we teach the European tradition when we teach voice. But Europeans really appreciate our American music, and all American music really comes from this African-American tradition, this African-American folk music.

“The blues is a direct derivative of the spiritual. Country music is a direct derivative of the blues. Jazz, gospel, R&B – all the pop music – is a direct derivative of the spiritual,” he added. “Everyone recognizes this outside of America, and we don’t celebrate our own music here.”

2-14-05