The Voices at BGSU

As the Voices at BGSU Concert Choir (The Voices), our mission is to spread the culture and history of spiritual music in a joyful manner through hard work, discipline, and collaboration. We accomplish this through performances, rehearsals, community service, and social events. Even though performance is the most visible outcome of our hard work, our members learn so much through activities that our audiences are unable to see. Our rehearsals teach our members about being disciplined and collaborative. Our community service projects help our members learn the importance of stewardship and our social events teach our members what it means to be a positive BGSU ambassadors. Being able to travel and share our hard work with people beyond the Bowling Green community allows our members to get exposure to different cultures, especially within the African American communities. Many of our songs are rooted in African American/Black history, and traveling enhances our ability to connect with many of the songs we perform. Performing at churches and other spiritual venues allows our members to learn more about the history of spiritual music as told by the leaders of these religious and spiritual congregations.

Our decision to create a tour in the Atlanta area is intentional because we hope this visit will add value to the mission of our organization. With this tour, we hope to draw audiences from various communities. After all, music is said to be a universal language. In addition to bringing together the community members, we would like for the choir learn about the rich and vibrant culture of the Atlanta area. We will be engaging in various community service experiences. With this experience, the goal is for members to learn about the rich musical history of the area. When we return to campus, we will start preparing for our spring concert. Our plan is incorporate the rich history of Atlanta and Negro spirituals within our performances. One way we will do this is by incorporating both spoken and written pieces of history in between our performances. Another plan is to visually incorporate our tour during our concert through a video that will highlight our visit. Our goal in doing this is to show our audience an example of a positive experience within an urban and metropolitan Atlanta. We will also perform songs that celebrate the rich musical history of Atlanta and the history of Negro spirituals.