New Brown Church Gives Music Scholarships

On December 15, New Brown Memorial Baptist Church at Clinton Street and Center Street held its annual Christmas concert, performed by the Sister Helen Lee Keyboard Ensemble and Drum Corps. The concert showcased youth talent honed in the church’s music program, led by the internationally acclaimed author James McBride and fellow instructor Damon Due White.

Founded in 1954 by McBride’s parents, New Brown started its music program six years ago “with five gallon drums and buckets. The program didn’t get really good until Mr. Due White came on board as our drum teacher three years ago,” McBride recounted. He and Due White hold classes on Saturday mornings; rehearsals for the two yearly concerts, winter and spring, take place on Friday evenings.

“This music is an avenue to success for young people because it teaches them discipline; it teaches them focus; it teaches them teamwork,” McBride said.

The program takes its name from the church’s late organist, Helen Lee of the Red Hook Houses, whom McBride called “one of the finest gospel organists in New York City.” She was “never recorded, but she was deeply talented.” McBride, Due White, and four other teachers aim to provide rigorous training in jazz and gospel for children in Red Hook. For parents who say they can’t afford to pay, New Brown makes the lessons available for free. 18 kids, from ages seven to 14, are currently enrolled.

“The way the whole art thing is set up in New York is really unfair,” McBride observed. He noted that kids from families that don’t have the resources to enlist personal instructors typically find themselves edged out of elite ensembles by a more privileged class and thus “can’t continue to play the music that was once intrinsically a part of their culture.”

New Brown sits seven blocks from BASIS Independent Brooklyn. “We know that down the street they built a big old private school. That school looks like a prison,” McBride opined during his remarks before the concert. “I don’t know any kids from Red Hook who are in that school. But I know that if you put music in front of kids in this program, they can play as good as any kid in this area, including kids that come from that school that costs $40,000 a year, which is more than what most people in the projects make for a living.”

The Sister Lee Music Program doesn’t apply for grants. “This church was made by working people,” as McBride put it. “When the bass goes out of tune, it’s not because of the bass player. It’s just because it’s a cheap, lousy bass.”

Even so, the Christmas concert featured an award ceremony that dispensed $2,500 in music scholarships to three hardworking pupils: an “unprecedented” sum for New Brown, gathered from the church fund, the church members, private donors, and parents. The recipients — Hollis Rivera, Erick Lopez, and Helen Lingaard — “practice the most and show the kind of moral excellence that New Brown represents,” according to McBride. Primarily, the scholarships will “help defray the cost of private lessons outside our church program” with “top professional pianists.”

Rivera, Lopez, and Lingaard performed in the show alongside 13 other young musicians, who played jazz renditions of Christmas standards, classical pieces, and spirituals. Tunes like “Deck the Halls” and “Für Elise” interpolated the sounds of Charles Mingus and Dizzy Gillespie. McBride, with his saxophone, and his bandmate, cellist Trevor Exter, joined Lingaard for “A Child Is Born.”

“Our long-term aim, with God’s help, is to keep our church tradition alive at New Brown, and to preserve the art of gospel music and African American music, which has helped keep our church vibrant for 65 years,” McBride stated.