Moriah Mason / Staff Writer
The Samford Gospel Choir has performed at many venues, including Reid Chapel, the African-American Luncheon and Bethel A.M.E. Church, and strives to enrich the lives of students through their musical talents.
However, according to current president and senior musical theatre major Theo Edwards-Butler, the choir fell apart due to poor leadership.
“It was left to people who didn’t care enough, it used to be a big thing on Samford’s campus, the choir maybe had twenty to thirty people in it,” Butler said.
Since the gospel choir was of great importance to her, she decided to restart it with a new group of members. Today, the choir consists of 13 members. Last semester, the choir did a pop-up concert in the Ben Brown Plaza.
There they performed “Lift Every Voice,” “Every Praise” and “Because of Who You Are.”
The choir also had another performance in Reid Chapel and performed, “God’s Got A Blessing,” “Hold On,” “Because of Who You Are,” “My Life is in Your Hands” and “Encourage Yourself.”
The gospel choir has become popular among many students including sophomores Chotsani Hollifield and Ambria Underwood. Gospel choir offers a different worship style to Samford students. Hollified also likes the choir because they provide a sense of nostalgia.
According to Hollifield, gospel choir offers different worship styles and allows students to have a different worship experience.
“I like gospel choir because their worship style is similar to the worship style that I grew up around,” Holifield said, ”Gospel choir differs from campus worship because it extends the worship to African American gospel
artists.”
Like Holifield Ambria Underwood also likes gospel choir’s style and songs.
“I think gospel choirs style and songs reflect the heart of the choir, which is to worship,” Underwood said, “The difference between cam-
pus worship and gospel choir is that gospel choir does bring more rhythm into the atmosphere.”
Both Underwood and Holified are excited to see what the choir has in store for this upcoming year.
“I think that the choir should do another pop up concerts because a lot of people seemed to enjoy it, including myself!” Hollifield said.
“From the performance that I saw last spring I think the gospel choir is doing great,” said Underwood.
The Samford Gospel Choir plans to do more concerts and performances this year, according to Butler.
“We hope to have a few fun concerts and do a couple of convos, our main goal right now is to try and change a few of the worship experiences that we have, and create more opportunities for African American students,”Butler said.
