The AU Gospel Choir is one part choir, one part ministry, one part cultural group and one part family. On Saturday in the Kay Spiritual Life Center, the choir performed one of its last shows for the semester, marking the end of another wonderful season.
The show began with the smaller Praise Group choir, getting the audience pumped before the main event. The first thing the audience could notice was the amount of sound the six people on the stage were making. They were accompanied by sparse, pounding piano chords supplied by student director Marlon Brown, providing both melody and rhythm for the vocalists.
The Gospel Choir is a true AU gem. You have to dig a little, as the shows are not widely publicized. But when one stumbles across them, it is quite the experience. To watch the choir perform is truly amazing, as the spectator can feel the palpable love for each other and for God the choir exudes as a whole.
"There is so much love and life in that choir," said member Maggie Sheets, a freshman in the School of International Service. "It's a church family that's really a church family, if you know what I mean."
The choir sings songs from all styles of Gospel: from traditional hymn arrangements, to R&B-inflected tunes, to contemporary Christian music. The choir sounds incredibly tight and powerful, each harmony part perfectly meshing and filling the high-ceilinged chapel.
A highlight of the show was an a cappella arrangement of "I Will Exault Thy Name," which was directed by Marlon Brown. The song started out simply, with one of the four groups of singers taking melody and the other three complementing the main part. By the end, the song had grown into a complicated and gorgeous tangle of voices, with Brown waving his arms wildly, keeping the singers together.
The show was the last on-campus performance of the season, which director Sylestea Sledge says was a rewarding one, having performed at many events across the area. For next year, Sledge has set his hopes a little more ambitiously.
"We hope to do some traveling in the future," Sledge said. "Maybe to New York, for example. A member of the choir is from Hawaii, so we might go there next year. We'll be doing some fund-raising."
Sledge also said the Gospel Choir might record next year and release a CD.
