The songs were born under oppression, but they endured.

When Maureen Kroncke sings spirituals such as “His Name So Sweet” and “Sinner, Please Don’t Let This Harvest Pass,” it is an emotional experience. It is not only that she is performing beautiful music, though that in itself always is powerful.

What moves Kroncke is knowing that the religious folk songs are a testament to the hopes and fears, faith and doubt of men, women and children who lived as slaves more than 150 years ago. It is a joy and honor to sing their music, she said.

“It passes over the limits of religion and covers a whole range of emotion. The range of emotion in the music really helps to enhance that spiritual feeling. People go away feeling strengthened and moved and blessed by it,” said Kroncke of Rocky Mount.

That is the reaction Kroncke, a mezzo-soprano, and organist Lawrence Goering are hoping for with their upcoming concert, “Great Day! Spirituals and Music by African-American Composers.” The free concert is at 5 p.m. Jan. 22 at Church of the Good Shepherd in Rocky Mount. There will be free child care provided and a reception following the concert.

The concert is the sixth performance in the church’s 12th annual Music at Good Shepherd series, Goering said. The series is an offering of about 10 to 12 special services and concerts from September to May, all of which are free and open to the public.

“The goal of the whole concert series is to offer great sacred music ... for the glory of God for the entire community,” said Goering, who has been the church’s organist and director of music for 20 years.

The concert series not only shares the talents of church members but serves to lift up the arts and express the glory of God, said the Rev. Scott White, Good Shepherd’s rector. The “Great Day!” program coincides with Martin Luther King Jr. Day as close as it could be arranged.

“Spirituals are a part of Christian life, whether you are black or white. We have been singing spirituals in the Episcopal Church for many years, so it is part of our own heritage. So, this concert will be a great joy to many people,” White said.

The concert will include arrangements of spirituals and organ works by 19th- and 20th-century black composers, Goering said. He will accompany Kroncke on the piano when she sings and also perform several organ pieces.

The duo performed a similar concert for last year’s performance series, but all of the music will be new for this concert.

The organ pieces that Goering will perform are by composers whom the average audience has never heard of, but they are brilliant composers whose works should be performed, he said. Some of the songs he will perform are Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Arietta” and “Elegy”; Florence Price’s “Adoration” and “A Pleasant Thought”; and Fela Sowande’s “Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho.”

“The audience will definitely go home singing some tunes in their head that they knew before they came. At the same time, they will go home having heard some things that are absolutely brand new to them,” said Goering of Rocky Mount.

The songs that Kroncke will perform include traditional spirituals, others that have been embellished and art songs. The songs include “All That I Am,” “Great Day,” “Joshua,” “Gwine Up” and “Ride on King Jesus.”

“Sometimes when you sing classical music, there is sort of a space between you and the audience. These songs go right to the heart and people really can relate to them. You have this kind of nice give and take between the audience and the singer,” Kroncke said.

In the decades preceding the Civil War, slaves created diverse forms of music, including work songs, field hollers and spirituals that gave strength, guidance and hope, Goering said. The original composers are unknown, but their legacy remains and continues to touch people, he said.

“I think that the fact that the music has endured speaks to the faith and perhaps the divine inspiration that the author experienced. I would hope that some of that would be passed on to the people listening,” Goering said.