Two SIUC associate professors in the School of Music will perform newly discovered songs from 15 African-American composers at 8 p.m. tonight in Shryock Auditorium.

Taking heed of a fan’s suggestion, soprano Jeanine Wagner and pianist Margaret Simmons conducted research to find pieces to perform by African-American composers for Black History Month, but the initial search for the songs didn’t uncover much.

This particular project had grown from some spirituals we had done, and then someone suggested that we look for art songs. But when we started to look for some we couldn’t find any, Simmons said.

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The women were not looking in the wrong places. Aside from an obscure anthology published more than 20 years ago, Simmons and Wagner soon discovered music by these composers was simply not available.

The interest in the music continued to grow for Simmons and Wagner, who have been performing together for nearly 20 years. Last year, they took sabbatical last year and ventured to the Center for Black Music Research in Chicago.

There they compiled a list of African-American composers all over the country to contact, and Simmons said the response was fantastic.

[The Center of Black Music Research] gave us their database of composers and we sent out 125 letters to the composers and told them what we were doing, Simmons said. We ended up with much more music sent to us than we can use in the program.

The music chosen for the program tonight consists of African-American spirituals and art songs. While the spirituals evolved from a religious background, the art songs came about from composers writing from the heart.

An art song is something that basically speaks to the human emotions or human situation, Wagner said. Spirituals are something that came out of the call and response when one person would sing something and the congregation would sing it back to them. You hear a lot of repetition in spirituals. They’re much more religiously based.

Simmons said the focal point of the performance will be on the art songs because those songs were not easy to find and are not as familiar to the average listener.

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Our focus is not on the spiritual because that music is fairly available. Our focus is on the art song where the music and poetry are equal in attention, Simmons said. As soon as you say African-American music, people just say, Oh, spirituals.’ They assume that’s all there is.

Wagner said that while some of the pieces are immediately likable and palatable to the ear and others are challenging, every song is well written and has qualities that make it enjoyable in its own way. But she and Simmons still want to hear feedback from students.

One thing Wagner would like to hear from students and local musicians is that this music is something they would like to perform.

I hope they’ll be excited and it will encourage some of the musicians in the community to go in search of these composers or to go hear the music because it is wonderful, Wagner said. With the exception of two of the 15 composers, these are living composers and they’re very anxious to talk to people and have folks do their work.

Music isn’t music until it’s performed.

Tickets for the performance are $6.50 for the general public, and $3 for students, seniors and children. For information, call 453-2787.

There will be a free dessert lecture at 7 p.m. in the Old Baptist Foundation behind Shryock Auditorium, just north of Faner Hall. A speaker will share special insights into the evening’s program.