Sonja Sepulveda

Sonja Sepulveda `74 `75 wants to share her music “beyond the fences.”

The Sumter, South Carolina, resident, who is one of the few female conductors in the country, is working to bring peace, harmony and understanding with what she calls America’s folk song – the concert spiritual.

Sepulveda is the artistic director of the Palmetto Voices Spiritual Ensemble, which performs African music, gospel songs, spirituals and will be doing its part to preserve the treasured songs from the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. She is in the process of listening and cataloging the spirituals/tunes from the 1980s along with Herbert Johnson ’01, ’13, another music professional, and main researcher Cathy Riley.

Sepulveda has found welcome receptions around the country and overseas when the ensemble has sung the spirituals. In July of this year, the ensemble performed in Stockholm, Sweden, and received much applause as Johnson's tenor voice filled the hall.

“It was a very emotional experience for me,” she recalled.

Included on the program was the "Gloria" by Italian composer Antonio Lucio Vivaldi who Sepulveda believes would have loved their American spirituals.

“Spirituals throw an arrow at the heart and soul,” she said, adding that “We need to bring everyone into this fantastic fold. It doesn’t just belong to one culture but to all of America.”

Her work does not just involve performance but song with a purpose. The ensemble is using its talents to help promote music education by holding concerts, recently two were held in August in Rock Hill, to raise college scholarship money for Winthrop students and high school students.

“Spirituals are about the human spirit,” Sepulveda added. “It is not considered entertainment because it was birthed out of oppression where slaves sang to each other in the fields to keep going with hope for a better tomorrow.”

Sepulveda started in music playing the piano but traces her decision to become a conductor to long-time Winthrop choral director Bob Edgerton. He started her career, making a profound effect on her and others involved in choral music in South Carolina.

Passionate about her work, Sepulveda shared in a TED Talk about the difficulty in being a woman conductor.

She taught high school for 20 years, college for 20 years and now is associated with the music company MidAmerica Productions, which is associated with Carnegie Hall. She is MidAmerica Production’s director of program development for its European division MidAm and Conductor-in-Residence.

Music, she said, is the way people connect. “That is the real ticket for harmony,” she said, and is something needed in these current times.