Songs of Faith and Healing highlight Songfest
A top-rated Black gospel group, Thai Buddhist monks, a Muslim imam and a world-renowned composer are coming to Logan at the end of June as part of the third Mountain West Songfest & Symposium, sponsored by Utah State University’s Mountain West Center for Regional Studies and Music Department, in cooperation with the Cache Valley Center for the Arts.
The Songfest, which features concerts, workshops and lectures, has a theme of “Songs of Faith and Healing.” Featured performers and scholars come from a variety of belief traditions and will share aspects of song and chant from those traditions. The Songfest runs June 26, 27 and 28 and features free workshops, lectures and concerts during the daytime hours. Two evening concerts will cost $18 each for adults.
The first evening concert, Friday, June 27, will present world-class African-American gospel music with Barbara Allen and Friends. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Kent Concert Hall of the Chase Fine Arts Center (approximately 1110 E. 610 North, Logan) on the USU campus.
“African-American gospel music is one of the liveliest musical traditions in the United States,” said Songfest director and folklorist Elaine Thatcher. “It continues to evolve and grow and is one of the most exciting forms of music around today.”
Barbara Allen is the music minister of the Faithful Central Bible Church in Los Angeles, Calif. She formerly worked as music director for Brenda Holloway and Motown Records. During that time she toured extensively throughout the United States and Canada, performing with the Motown Revue, The Quincy Jones Workshop, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Dick Clark Tour and The Apollo Theater in Harlem. Also to her credit are choir appearances in episodes of the television shows “The White Shadow” and “7th Heaven.” Her most recent accomplishment was the live recording of “Zion Rejoice” on Integrity Gospel Records, which debuted at #7 on the Billboard Gospel Charts.
On June 28, USU choirs and instrumentalists, along with Ghanaian drummer Obo Addy and soprano Brianna Craw, will present “African Sanctus,” the masterpiece work by British composer David Fanshawe, who will deliver a pre-concert lecture. The lecture begins at 6:15 p.m. in USU’s Kent Concert Hall in the Chase Fine Arts Center (approximately 1110 E. 610 North, Logan), with the concert following at 7:30 p.m. The work combines texts from the Latin Mass with field recordings made in Africa by Fanshawe, accompanied by African drums, a rock band, piano and more.
“This is a massive work,” said Thatcher. “It is an amazing experience to hear.”
“‘African Sanctus’ is a unique musical-documentary of Fanshawe’s travels in Africa and a tribute to global unity between people, their faiths and their music,” said Cory Evans, who is directing the piece.
Obo Addy will open the concert with a presentation of his authentic Ghanaian drumming. Addy’s musical background is a combination of the rigorous standards of ritual music he learned from his father, a Wonche Priest, with the flashy international pop music he performed as a young professional with big bands in Accra, Ghana. Addy is one of the originators of the musical movement now known as “Worldbeat.” Now living in the United States, Addy is a recipient of a prestigious National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (1996). This is the highest honor a traditional artist can receive in this country.
Other events include free lunchtime concerts at the Bullen Center June 26 and 27, meditation sessions led by Thai Buddhist monks and a presentation of Koranic reading and the call to prayer by Imam Muhammed Mehtar of the Khadeeja Islamic Center. A keynote address will be given by sacred music scholar Guy L. Beck of Tulane University. Beck, who is a musician, will also present Hindustani sacred music. Other scholars will deliver lectures on a variety of topics related to sacred vocal music and chant.
Two campus museums are also offering activities related to religious practice. The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art will continue its exhibit “Picturing Faith: Religious America in Government Photography, 1935 – 1943, and the Museum of Anthropology will present a program on Islamic music and chant on Saturday.
The Mountain West Songfest & Symposium is a cooperative project of the USU Mountain West Center for Regional Studies, the USU Music Department and the Cache Valley Center for the Arts, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, American Express and the Utah Humanities Council. A complete schedule and other information can be found at www.usu.edu/mountainwest or by calling (435) 797-3630.