CSO Gospel Choir presents The Great Migration: 1915-1930 African-American Southern Exodus

Event Details

The CSO Gospel Choir is pleased to present its annual Palm Sunday performance under the direction of Music Director Sandra S. Barnhardt and Guest Conductor Nathan L. Nelson entitled The Great Migration: 1915-1930 African-American Southern Exodus, a concert theme conceived by the Choir’s Founder and President, Lee Pringle and inspired by the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabelle Wilkerson on Palm Sunday, April 1, 2012, 5:00pm at St. Matthews Lutheran Church, 405 King Street, Charleston. Through dramatic gospel music and historical narration, this debut performance will chronicle this massive exodus experience, the largest internal migration in U.S. history.
Six million African-Americans fled the South from 1915 to 1970 and forever changed the country, North and South. Bringing with it new forms of gospel, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip hop, this mass departure changed the cultural and political landscape of America, exerting pressure on the South to change and paving the way toward equal rights for the lowest caste people in the country.

Inspired by this national best-selling book, the acclaimed CSO Gospel Choir will re-tell one of the greatest underreported stories in American history through sacred, spirituals and gospel music. Selections will include the classic I Will Sing Hallelujah, Beams of Heaven, Take Me to The Water and Aretha Franklin’s beloved version of Precious Memories and many others popularized by the evolution of traditional and modern gospel music.

“Like many Southern-born African-Americans, I am a recipient of the vast opportunities afforded me due in part to my parents’ migration to the Northeast in the early 1960s–starting in Harlem, they too eventually returned to the south in the 1970s. I knew of no one growing up who did not have a relative that was from “up yonder.” The tale of migration is a part of the American experience for most African-Americans,” said Lee Pringle, producer/CSO Gospel Choir President.

Tickets and Information
CSO Gospel Choir: The Great Migration: 1915-1930 African-American Southern Exodus
Palm Sunday April 1, 2012, 5pm
St Matthews Lutheran Church, 405 King Street, downtown Charleston
Tickets: $20 adults; $10 students with ID
Online: www.csogospel.com
By phone (866) 811-4111
At door: Up to one hour before performance (cash or check only)