Choirs Come Together in Song, Worship

Less than a week after the much-publicized "Does God Exist?" debate, hundreds of Ivy League students dedicated their weekend to answering the question with a resounding affirmative.

Last Saturday night, students from six Ivy League schools assembled at the Mass. Ave. Baptist Church for "10,000 Tongues '99," the first annual Ivy League Gospel Fest.

The free concert, part of a weekend-long gospel conference, was co-sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Black Students Association (BSA) and the Harvard-Radcliffe Kuumba Singers.

According to co-organizer and BSA secretary Alicia E. Johnson '01, about 200 students spent the weekend at a series of educational and social events.

On Friday, choir members met with the board of the NAACP and the Harvard NAACP at the Institute of Politics. They then attended a reception with the pastor from Boston's New Covenant Christian Center, followed by an evening mixer.

Students participated in workshops on Saturday and spent the rest of the day preparing for the evening's concert.

Joined by gospel choirs from Yale, Dartmouth, Columbia, Princeton and Penn, Kuumba led the audience through a rousing three hours of standard gospel music and spiritual affirmation.

Johnson co-organized the concert with Yale student Eyi Taiye Tuakli-Wosornu.

According to Johnson, she and Tuakli-Wosornu wanted to unite a large group of Ivy League students and settled on gospel as one element of students' lives that could bring them together.

Even though Harvard hosts its share of interschool musical gatherings, no one could have mistaken Saturday's concert for a standard Harvard a capella jam.

The Reverend Zina Jaque, who hosted the event, warned spectators at the beginning not to expect a staid, sit-down evening.

"If you wore shoes that hurt, take 'em off now!" she cried.

Addressing a packed and relatively diverse room, Jaque roused the audience to a feverish pitch with a series of "hallelujah"s and "praise the lord"s before introducing the first group.

As the Dartmouth choir took the stage and launched into its first song, the audience began clapping along, tapping its feet, and calling out.

Soon much of the room had risen to its feet, swaying to the music and singing along as the floor vibrated beneath them.

Though music formed the backbone of the evening, many students said they had an added reason for participating in the event.

Tuakli-Wosornu told students she hoped the concert would prove to them that they are not alone in their devotion to God.

"Know that you are not the only one who prays before your orgo test," she said.

Several of the visiting choir members echoed this theme throughout the night, recalling the solace they had found in religion and the gospel choir and their happiness in learning this weekend that other students shared their commitment to faith.

Johnson said that she had not expected the evening to take on such a religious tone.

"At first it was supposed to be just a concert, but I guess having something like that in a church brings out more than the music," she said.

Johnson said she was pleased that the weekend had allowed Christian students to bond with each other, though she added that she felt religious Harvard students did not share the visiting students' sense of isolation.

Shannon T. Hodge '00 president of Kuumba, said in an email message that religion was not the central purpose of the concert, citing instead the opportunity for Ivy League students to come together.

"Typically, many of the choirs have felt isolated from one another; this weekend helped to bridge the gaps between the choirs," she wrote.

The concert attracted over 350 guests from both the Harvard and Cambridge communities, some who were quite familiar with the gospel experience and others who came with no idea of what to expect.

Jessica L. Lee, a Cambridge high school student who heard about the concert from an older sister, attends a conservative church and said she had never seen anything like this before.

"I love it, I think it's so awesome," she said. "I didn't expect this much strong faith, it's really amazing."

Wambui Chege, a student at Cornell Medical School, was in the area visiting her sister and came to show support for the choirs.

"It was very moving, it was good to see so many young people of many different colors doing good things with their life," she said.