How many of the original songs survive intact from the slave cabins? Probably not many in their original form. Time has transformed them like light in a prism. What we hope to present is a version of those spirituals, and they speak not just to black Americans, but to people worldwide.

The question is not... if art is enough to fulfill my life, but if I am true to the path I have set for myself, if I am the best I can be in the things I do. Am I living up to the reasons I became a singer in the first place?

In spirituals, the talk of heaven and deliverance was code for a better life. 'Crossing the River Jordan' was code, of course, for escaping to freedom.

New York is a great place to be fed in the arts. The arts in general are a large part of my life. The city was my postgraduate course.

Some of the music I listen to is pop. I sing it in the shower - and then for public consumption.

Wherever and whenever I sing, if there is only one spiritual on a program, people will talk about two things afterward, and one of them will be the spiritual. What I bring to this is the best of my classical training - not all of it. I apply what is appropriate.

I think for more than half of my career I have refrained from talking to the media.