The vision

I am kicking some ideas around for a vocal group in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I have some fairly eclectic music tastes, so my vision is unusual to say the least. The foundation of the repertoire for my as yet imaginary vocal group would be two genres: sacred choir music and 1950’s black gospel quartet music. To be more specific:

I sang with the Camarata Chamber Singers in Seoul for a couple of years. Dr. Ryan Goessl, the founder and director of the group introduced me to some fabulous choral works that I would love to sing again, including:
1. O Magnum Mysterium by Morten Lauridsen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbUHycl37p4
2. Spaséñiye (Salvation is Created) by Pavel Tchesnokov: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJSbw8Ea2Os
3. Congatulamini Mihi by Tomás Luis de Victoria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YddWzvjOEq8
All three are slower, meditative pieces inspired by the story of the Nativity.

On the other end of the spectrum – in 1985 when I was in college I discovered the music of Sam Cooke when Harrison Ford’s character in the movie Witness was fixing his car while Cooke’s ‘Wonderful World’ was playing on the car radio. I did some research to find the name of the singer – not that easy to do in 1985 before the internet! I ended up at Tower Records with a copy of The Best of Sam Cooke which eventually led back to Tower Records for albums of Cooke’s earlier work with the gospel quartet The Soul Stirrers. I knew as much about black gospel music at that time as any white kid from Idaho did, which was basically nothing. All of this led me to Anthony Hielbut’s excellent book The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times, which led me to other gospel quartets including my favorite, the Swan Silvertones. A few of my favorite quartet records:
1. The Last Mile of The Way – The Soul Stirrers w/Sam Cooke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq7BIXHasvs
2. My Rock – The Swan Silvertones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAw0dREBAZ4
3. Take the Lord – The Swan Silvertones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za49Dza95js

My wild vision is to start a vocal group in Coeur d’Alene with the beauty and purity of Harry Christopher’s group The Sixteen, the soul and grit of The Swan Silvertones and a repertoire split evenly between sacred choral pieces and black gospel quartet music. Should be easy, don’t you think? Please contact me if you would like to be a part of this wild experiment.