Review: VocalEssence offers powerful ‘Witness: Eyes Still On the Prize’ concert at Northrop

You could probably use a little inspiration right now.

If you’re weary of heart and spirit, I recommend Sunday afternoon’s VocalEssence “Witness” concert. Judging from a student-oriented version of the program Friday morning at Northrop auditorium, this might have just what you need to awaken the activist within you.

Since 1991, the Minneapolis-based choral organization, VocalEssence, has marked Black History Month with a concert that pays tribute to an important event or individual from African American culture. This year, the focus is upon six women, three of them national figures and three more of them local.

Two were key to America’s story of desegregation: Ruby Bridges, who broke the color barrier in the public schools of New Orleans at age 6, and Claudette Colvin, who was 15 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., before Rosa Parks more famously did the same. And much of the concert’s music is also rooted in the Civil Rights Movement.

While it will likely be lovely to hear the VocalEssence Chorus wrap its sumptuous harmonies around Rosephanye Powell’s “I Dream a World” and “America Will Be!” from contemporary composer Joel Thompson (whose opera, “The Snowy Day,” was recently presented by Minnesota Opera), Friday’s most powerful moments came when VocalEssence’s teaching artists lent their powerful voices to songs that made their way out of Southern churches and into the streets when the fight for equal rights became a turning point in American history.

So Friday’s audience was able to revel in the rich bass voice of T. Mychael Rambo as he led them in “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round” and in longtime staple of the Twin Cities jazz scene Ginger Commodore raising goosebumps with a thrilling take on “We Shall Not Be Moved.” And Timothy Berry and Traiveon Dunlap made “Eyes on the Prize (Hold On!)” the most exhilarating sing-along of all.

But the most charismatic performers onstage were the youngest. Singers of This Age (or SOTA, for short) is a group of high school-age singers who throw themselves body and soul into their singing. They delivered a version of B.E. Boykin’s “Stand Up!” that earned its exclamation point and brought out the beauty in Robert T. Gibson’s arrangement of “This Little Light of Mine” and the bouncy funk bubbling inside Rollo Dilworth’s “Freedom Train.”

Like most of the concert’s most inspiring moments, those featured a wonderfully versatile onstage quartet of instrumentalists, a key element being the interplay of Casey Rafn’s grand piano and the organ and electric piano of Sam Reeves.

And the concert’s most entertaining visuals came courtesy of conductor G. Phillip Shoultz III. Gracefully directing traffic onstage between soloists, speakers and dancers and calling forth the voices and enthusiasm of the audience, Shoultz seemed both relaxed and in total command of the presentation.

On Sunday, there will be even more dancing, much of it from One Accord Dance Collective. But it’s hard to imagine it being any more enjoyable than the spontaneous movement that Singers of This Age brought to “Freedom Train.” After that burst of adrenaline, the mood swiftly turned in a more touching direction on a suitably reverent “We Shall Overcome,” given a gorgeous arrangement by Shoultz that showed off the VocalEssence Chorus’ beautifully balanced blend.

What: “Witness: Eyes Still on the Prize”

When: 4 p.m. Sun.

Where: Northrop auditorium, 84 SE. Church St., Mpls.

Tickets: $17-$44, available at 612-624-2345 or northrop.umn.edu

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.