A Gift of Music to the Community
December 2, 2009 by spelmancollege
Filed under December 2009, Past Features
It’s early in November, and Kevin Johnson readies the Spelman College Glee Club for the big 83rd Annual Spelman-Morehouse Christmas Carol Concert, Dec. 4-6. A free concert to the Atlanta community, the vocalists spend hours rehearsing to present a flawless production.
A man of passion and perfection, Johnson, chair of the music department and director of choral activities, drills the ensemble of more than 70 women with riffs of “Glory to God in the Highest. Peace to his people on earth!” For more than an hour he jokes, admonishes, and demonstrates how each of those 12 words should be emphasized — readying them for this and other favorites like “We Are Christmas.”
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“Christmas carol is one our biggest performances and launches us into our season, so we practice pretty intensely to perform at a high level,” says Johnson, who will be performing in his 11th Christmas carol concert.
“I feel honored to be able to be a part of this historic event for the third time, and I’m excited about the music we’ll be performing this year,” says Brittany Inge, C’2011, who is considering a profession as a classical musician or an R&B recording artist. “Our goal for every performance is to amaze and inspire our audiences, and there is no way to accomplish that without proper preparation.”
One of three major concerts performed with the neighboring Morehouse College Glee Club, the two other concerts include the A King Celebration Concert in January and the spring tour that begins in March. The collective glee clubs will perform alongside the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in January for the King concert.
“To prepare the glee club to perform with the Atlanta Symphony I always have in mind that for the first-years this is going to be something they’ve never experienced,” says Johnson. “We don’t ever want [ASO] to feel like they are performing with a subpar group, so we have always been able to rise to the challenge and to do very well.”
For the King concert, the glee clubs, led by Robert Spano, ASO music director, will be performing Donald Sur’s “Slavery Documents.” Johnson says the spring tour will take the glee club along the East Coast to Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York, Connecticut, and a couple of other cities. — Renita Mathis
View photos from the 2008 Christmas Carol Concert
