Alabama’s premier choir of the black experience in North America, Tuskegee University’s Golden Voices Concert Choir brings to Kingston some of the all-time greatest stories in song.
Kingston will be one of only four stops on Golden Voices’ first-ever tour outside America, following Black History month in Canada.
The choir will Workshop their magnificent music (2-4 pm) offering audience members the chance to rehearse two songs with them and participate in their evening Concert (7 pm). Both are proudly hosted by Open Voices Community Choir. All proceeds go to support Tuskegee University programs.
Tickets and information ONLY AT www.tucanadatour.ca / tucanadatour@gmail.com
The 50-member Golden Voices Concert Choir, led by Dr. Wayne Barr features songs anchored in America’s period of black slavery. Founded in 1886 by ex-slave Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Alabama University that he also founded five years earlier, Golden Voices’ powerful repertoire has grown over the centuries. It features four-part arrangements that William Levi Dawson wrote between 1931 and 1956, always filled with beauty, grace, and rich meaning. For example, the slave song, “Follow The Drinkin’ Gourd,” contained words that were a secret signal to fleeing slaves directing them to the nighttime path northward. Similarly, “Ride The Chariot,” was sung by slaves in fields to signal “all clear” to escapees still on the run. Similar messages of help, hope, and redemption can be found in “Deep River,” “I Want To Be Ready,” “Wade In The Water,” and “Every Time I Feel The Spirit,” to name but a few.
Golden Voices Concert Choir has sung at Carnegie Hall, Radio City, and by invitation to four U.S. presidents.
Tom Mawhinney, previously director of the fundraising gospel choir, “Voices Of Joy” in Kingston, is organizing the tour which includes concerts in Ottawa, Toronto, Kingston, and London Ontario.