By Sharon Kant-Rauch
DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER

Growing up in Kansas during the 1960s, Andre Thomas didn’t like singing spirituals. As the only black student at his high school of 2,000, he felt the slave dialect was just a way for white people to poke fun at black people.

But his attitude changed when he got to college. Actor and musician Jester Hairston told him, among other things, that the reason “th” was often written as a “d” was because most African languages didn’t include the “th” sound.

Thomas did a complete turnaround. Today the Owen F. Sellers Professor of Music at Florida State University has arranged more than 20 spirituals for choral groups and has written a new book called “Way Over in Beulah Lan’: Understanding and Performing the Negro Spiritual.”

He’ll be signing copies from 2 to 5 p.m. today at Beethoven & Company on Timberlane Road.

“No matter where I go,” said Thomas, who has conducted all over the world and plans to lead the Tallahassee Community Chorus in China in a few weeks, “people want to hear these spirituals.”

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