[Early Draft – 2020-08-31]
Given in the following are links to some choral music that I had contact with during my affiliation at Tremont Temple Baptist Church with their Chancel Choir from 2004-2006 and their Gospel Choir from 2005-2016. I became the volunteer choir director of that church’s Chancel Choir beginning in 2004. In 2005, Dr. Geoff Hicks began his work at the church by forming the Gospel Choir, and then when the church found funding for the choir director position, I stepped aside and Geoff took on that assignment as well. For the next decade I became an assistant director for the Gospel Choir, charting the music on a volunteer basis.
To some extent even before Geoff appeared on the scene, I had begun to schedule Black Gospel music for the Chancel Choir, in addition to anthems and occasional classical music. Choir members were already familiar with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, and I had been aware of them beforehand, but now I was getting involved in rehearsing and performing some of their music.
In addition to “Brooklyn Tab” music, I also discovered a contemporary composer by the name of Mark Condon, whose music seemed to bridge the gap between Black Gospel and Contemporary Worship music. And I had a fairly extensive background in Southern Gospel music, so the music I chose spanned a wide range of styles and lyric content.
During my 3 years as choir director, I found by far the most difficult issue was choosing the music. Consideration included:
- What was the message, and how well communicated?
- Would the choir be equipped to sing it well?
- Would my accompanist be able to rehearse and play it well?
- How long was the piece? (needed to be under 5 minutes, usually)
- What did the congregation want?
- What did the congregation need to hear?
- what did the pastor want?
- What did the choir members want?
- What did I want?
- What did God want?
Over those 3 years, this image formed in my mind: the choir members, accompanist and I constituted a bubble within which we joined together, and my first responsibility was to them, and to the spiritual atmosphere we had together, with our hearts and minds tuned to God and to one another. Thus prayer and sharing time together was vital. If someone was sick or hurting, we needed to be a support for them.
Then, as long as the presence of God was paramount within that “bubble” – along with diligent preparation of course – then we in a sense invited the congregation and even the staff to join our unified presence in that bubble. I’m not saying we always succeeded, but that was the goal.
Given below are examples of the type of music we undertook in the Black Gospel, Southern Gospel and Contemporary Worship music styles. I am not addressing the anthems and classical music that we also scheduled on occasion.
In some cases, links to the charts we used are provided. Note that in essentially all cases, our version needed to be truncated from the recording or songbook. Plus, for those choral charts that came from songbooks, the two-staff SATB notes were converted to one-staff 3-part SAT. Also, ordinarily, accompaniment charts were sparsely prepared, because Geoff could usually pick up the songs by listening, or with the one-staff choral part. Often the choral part had chord symbols. Yes, he was (and is) that gifted.
Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir
The following songs were performed in shortened versions by the Tremont Temple Gospel Choir.
Worthy Is The Lamb – Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir (05:16)
Chart: Worthy Is the Lamb
Holy Like You (Live) (feat. Susan Pettrey) (06:60)
Chart: Holy Like You
Saved – Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir (05:52)
Charts: Saved and Saved (solo)
Lord Thy God – The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir (04:28)
The following link is Tremont Temple Choir version of “The Lord Thy God”. The audio is not all that great.
2015-06-21 The Lord Thy God (04:15)
Charts: The Lord Thy God and The Lord Thy God (solo)
The following is a recent 2016 posting, and NOT preformed by the Tremont Temple Gospel Choir.
Jesus Is (LIVE) – The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir (04:08)
Chicago Mass Choir
Chicago Mass Choir- !Jesus Promised (05:08)
The following link is Tremont Temple Choir version of “Jesus Promised”. Geoff Hicks is at the piano. As with the Brooklyn Tab songs above, the Tremont Temple Gospel Choir versions needed to be shorter.
2015-11-15 Jesus Promised (04:00)
Chart: Jesus Promised
It was quite difficult to determine the downbeat for the chart of this CMC song!
Chart: God Is My Everything
Southern Gospel
Gold City . Keep Me On The Wheel. 2001. Live From Thomas Road Church. (03:32)
The following link is Tremont Temple Choir version of “Keep Me On the Wheel”. Again, as above, the audio is not all that great. The soloist Chelsa Bailey is a Berklee College of Music graduate. Geoff Hicks is at the piano.
Keep Me On the Wheel – TTGC 2013-04-21 (04:01)
Charts: Keep Me On the Wheel and Keep Me On the Wheel (solo)
Other
This rendition of Edwin Hawkins’s song has the following YouTube description:
Taconic High School’s Honors Chorus, under the direction of Jessica Passetto, joined the Tremont Temple Baptist Church and the Cantilena Chamber Choir in this rendition of “Oh Happy Day” at the Martin Luther King Jr. Spirituals Sing at Trinity Church in Lenox on Jan. 18, 2015.
It should be noted that the “rehearsal” on this song with the combined choirs amount to one time through the song, and no discussion took place on how many repeats on the final vamp! Note that less than half of the Tremont Temple Gospel Choir were able to make the trip. The soloist is Chelsa Bailey.
Chart: O Happy Day