Music and praise come together at GospelFest
By Nate Seltenrich
Santa Clara University's Gospel Choir will certainly make some jaws drop at this year's GospelFest. The diverse choir will be singing music during the third annual gospel music celebration that was written by some of gospel's greats and intended for all-black choirs.
GospelFest is the biggest event of the year for Santa Clara's Gospel Choir. It will take place on Saturday, Mar. 1 at 7 p.m. in the Mission Church and admission is free.
"We all come together from different ethnic and denominational backgrounds to worship Jesus," says Gospel Choir founder and senior Shelene Huey.
Their performances, or "ministry opportunities," as the choir refers to them, are often met with enthusiastic audience responses. GospelFest 2003 should be no exception.
"I think it blows people's minds," says freshman choir member Missy Scott-Fl--rez. "It's not just singing, it's ministry. Everyone gets into it, the whole community."
In fact, the Gospel Choir's ministry opportunities are often structured around the idea of audience involvement. A recent example of this occurred when the choir participated in Santa Clara's Music at Noon Series as part of Black History Month on Feb. 12.
"It was a whole lot of fun. It was so cool. Everyone in the audience got into it," says freshman choir member Bryan Lorentz. "We turned it into a semi-workshop, where everyone in the audience learned a song."
The choir, who sounded stirringly soulful even at a rehearsal in the Music and Dance Building last Thursday, has been practicing songs for GospelFest since January.
In addition to Santa Clara's Gospel Choir, which has 30 members, a number of other choirs and singers will attend the event as guests of our choir. Some of these include Westcoast Praise, the Stanford University Gospel Choir and a number of individual guests. All in all, there should be about 90 guest performers at GospelFest and 600-700 audience members in attendance.
Each choir sings their own set of songs and their role is to assist Santa Clara's choir in "lifting up the name of Jesus," says Shelene Huey. The various guests are also brought together at GospelFest in order to showcase gospel music talents from around the Bay Area.
In addition to GospelFest, other major events on the Gospel Choir's annual calendar include Christmas and Spring concerts. Also, the choir frequently travels to a variety of other area locations to sing, such as Davis, San Rafael and Santa Cruz. They will even soon be performing at a Santa Clara alumnus's wedding.
Shelene Huey founded the current Gospel Choir in 2000 at the end of her freshman year. There was another gospel choir at Santa Clara about 10 years ago, says Huey, but it fell apart. She came to the university with a hope of resurrecting the choir and bringing gospel music back to Santa Clara.
Huey will continue to serve as the choir's director after she graduates this spring, even though she will be going to graduate school in Redding, Calif. As soon as someone comes through the program that is capable and willing to take the reigns, she says, she will step down as director. But most importantly, she doesn't want to see the Gospel Choir fall apart again and will do whatever she can to keep that from happening.
Show your support for Santa Clara University's Gospel Choir and don't miss GospelFest. It is sure to be a powerful and spirited event that you won't soon forget.