The Lansing Symphony Orchestra’s Holiday Pops concert Sunday afternoon (Dec. 15) promises to bring forth a tower of musical power and a historic moment in the community’s cultural life.
For the first time, a mighty army of 130 gospel singers from Lansing, Flint and points beyond will join the symphony in a mix of traditional holiday tunes, straight-up classical grandeur and full-scale gospel joy.
“They’ll come out in the first half and sing some classical repertoire, then they’ll come back in the second half and burn down the barn,” LSO maestro Timothy Muffitt said.
“The whole community is coming to raise their voices for this concert,” choral director LaVonté Heard declared. “It’s going to be epic.”
Heard, artistic director of Lansing’s Verna D. Holley Project, the successor group to the legendary Earl Nelson Singers, contacted the LSO about two years ago with the idea of “bringing some soul to the symphony.”
“We wanted to find ways to bring in the sound of African American music and the Black church, projects that might bring a little diversity to the symphony’s repertoire, and just start a new relationship,” Heard said. “They were very enthusiastic.”
He was inspired, in part, by a series of spectacular concerts mounted by the Dayton, Ohio-based Jeremy Winston Chorale with the Czech National Symphony in Prague in 2015 and 2016. (The Winston group will join the gospel forces in Lansing on Sunday.)
“We’re talking sold-out, packed audiences. They absolutely destroyed those halls,” Heard said. “These aren’t classical singers trying to sing gospel. These are classical singers who come from the gospel tradition and bring all the refinement that comes with being classically trained to singing gospel in its most authentic way.”
Meanwhile, Muffitt and LSO Executive Director Courtney Millbrook attended a local church concert by the Verna D. Holley Project.
“Wow,” Muffitt said. “There’s some tremendous talent over there, including LaVonté himself.”
Heard is a powerhouse vocalist, committed teacher and executive director of Lansing’s Transcendence Performing Arts Center.
It took a while to work out the details, but everyone’s schedule lined up for a December 2024 Holiday Pops extravaganza.
“LaVonté has this extraordinary network of musicians. He made all the calls and got these people here,” Muffitt said.
At the most recent count, Heard had 130 voices at his command, dangerously close to the limit of 150 set by the Wharton Center (if not the fire marshal).
Choral forces will include the Verna D. Holley Project, the Jeremy Winston Chorale, the Lansing Church of God in Christ and the Bread House International Ministries (also known as Bethlehem Temple). Young singers from the Detroit School of Arts’ Concert Choir and Sexton High School’s Singing Sensations will crank the energy even higher.
“We have more high-school-age students being a part of this than we do adults, and that makes me so happy,” Heard said. A Flint-based gospel ensemble, Jeremiah Towner & Highest Praise, will join the chorus as well.
Heard tapped Jeremy Winston, an accomplished composer and arranger, to merge the sound of the orchestra and choral forces.
“All we had to do is turn it in and let the Lansing Symphony do what they do best,” Heard said.
Muffitt and Heard agree that the arrangements are authentic to the gospel tradition while harnessing the power and sweep of a symphony orchestra.
“I sent Tim a very long list of tunes that he could choose from, that I thought would represent us well,” Heard said. “I think he chose so well.”
The program will also showcase an ebullient, high-energy vocal ensemble, the Singletons, a home-grown family unit that has been singing together since 2000.
“They’re the only gospel group from Lansing that has ever been signed by a national label,” Heard said. “When you talk about gospel royalty here in town, this is it.”
Even the Singletons will stretch out Sunday, performing holiday tunes they’ve never done before.
Heard is proud that the concert will showcase the variety of Black musical expressions. Soprano Nicole Joseph, a Detroit-based classical and opera vocalist, will sing “Rejoice Greatly, O Daughter of Zion” from Handel’s “Messiah.” Heard himself will appear to sing “Comfort Ye, My People” and “Every Valley Shall Be Exalted,” also from “Messiah.”
“I’ve sung with orchestras all over the world, and I’ve never been asked by my home orchestra to appear,” Heard said. “But they’ve called me this time.”
One high point will be a pair of glorious arrangements from “Handel’s Messiah: A Soulful Celebration,” a 1992 LP by jazz musician, composer, arranger and producer Quincy Jones, who died Nov. 3.
The album hits the sweet spot where classical and gospel hymns find common ground, taking Handel’s massive slabs of choral splendor on a syncopated, grooving ride down the River Jordan.
“Of course, we didn’t know a year ago that he was going to pass away, but what better way for us to pay homage to him?” Heard said.
When Muffitt mounted similar concerts several years ago as music director of the Baton Rouge Symphony, he found that Jones’ version of the “Hallelujah” chorus had to be programmed last.
“Nothing can follow it,” he said.
Or can it? Both the Transcendence Performing Arts Center and the LSO are “committed now to doing something new,” according to Heard. “Collaboration is now the name of the game,” Heard said. “And we’re in the game to bring the symphony to our community.”
Heard envisions a project similar to the Dayton Philharmonic’s Stained Glass concert series, where the symphony performs in local churches with church choirs.
“People who wouldn’t normally go and see the symphony would come to these concerts and be made believers,” Heard said.
Muffitt said it’s high on the symphony’s “wish list.”
“This is the first step in connecting our organizations, and I hope more wonderful things will come from it,” he said.
The orchestra will be outnumbered by a ratio of about two to one on Sunday, but Muffitt doesn’t sound worried.
“It’ll be great,” he said. “I can’t wait, personally, to be bathed in the sound of that choir.”
“We’re going to blow the roof off this place,” Heard said. “They’ve never heard anything like this at the Pops before.”
Sunday’s powerful fusion of musical cultures also reflects Heard’s remarkable life path.
As a young man, he attended Christ Temple Church of Lansing, “a small Pentecostal church” near the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Lenore Avenue, where his grandmother was a choir director and voice trainer.
“There were two different avenues in my life,” Heard said. “I was exposed to the Singletons family. Andrea Singleton-Hall heard that I had a voice and encouraged and worked with me. She gave me my start on the gospel side.”
Heard decided to play piano when he was 7 years old, after a concert by the Earl Nelson Singers at the First Presbyterian Church on Ottawa Street.
His grandmother took him to meet the group’s director, local legend and music educator Verna Holley. She asked him if he would promise to practice. He said, “Yes.”
“Verna Holley was the first one to put my hands on the piano and show me the way,” Heard said.
Holley instilled in Heard the confidence to tackle classical music. He went to Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, “at her behest.”
A stroke of luck came in 2011 when he got a chance to study in Salzburg, Austria. At a vocal competition, he followed up his classical recital with a classic gospel song, “We Shall Behold Him.” Unbeknownst to Heard, pioneering African American opera star Grace Bumbry was in the audience.
Bumbry asked to see Heard, invited him to her house and mentored him as he navigated a multifaceted career in classical and gospel music.
“Now, I’m coming full circle as an educator,” Heard said. “I still perform, but my heart is for music education’s accessibility. That’s why I founded the Transcendence Performing Arts Center — so I could be the Verna Holley for another child.”
Sunday’s historic collaboration with the Lansing Symphony is a part of Heard’s dream to weave Transcendence Performing Arts Center and its educational mission more deeply and broadly into the community’s cultural fabric.
“That’s what this is all about — visibility,” he said. “It’s us saying, ‘Hey, we’re here, and there are some awesome voices in Lansing.’”
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