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Gospel music pioneer's history found in University of Pittsburgh archive
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For over 20 years, the gospel music archives of composer, musician and publisher, Charles Henry Pace, sat unorganized and collecting dust at the University of Pittsburgh. "I knew we had this gospel collection, but nobody had ever really looked into it or really even figured out what it was," said Christopher Lynch, a musicologist and project coordinator at the Center for American Music in the University of Pittsburgh Library System. Lynch moved to Pittsburgh in 2017 and was introduced to the history of the Hill District, a cultural hub and predominantly Black neighborhood with deep roots in jazz music and home to legendary artists like playwright August Wilson. With this newfound inspiration, he decided to research Pace to better understand what was in the archive. And by 2021 he was fully organizing the 14 crates of printing plates, photo negatives of sheet music and hand written compositions.
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For over 20 years, the work of gospel music composer Charles Henry Pace sat in 14 unorganized crates, dirty and decomposing. This was until a music historian at the University of Pittsburgh was inspired to uncover the true history behind the photo negatives, printing plates and pieces of sheet music the university acquired in 1999.
