The composer Ernest Bloch once wrote that it’s only by plunging one’s roots to the depths of one’s own people that one finds the common ground of all people. Antonin Dvorák expressed a similar sentiment, and here’s the advice that he gave to American composers at the beginning of the 20 th century, after he had been introduced to African American Sprirtuals: “I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called the negro melodies...