UAB Gospel Choir Information

Thanks for your interest in the UAB Gospel Choir. My name is Kevin Turner and I am the director of this ensemble. In November of 2006, the UAB Gospel Choir celebrated our 11th Anniversary with a reunion/anniversary concert at the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center (to a capacity crowd). I am excited about your interest in our ensemble and hope that you will become a part of our future endeavors. The following information below should answer most of your questions about us.

Basic Information
The UAB Gospel Choir is open to all UAB students regardless of your major. One credit hour is earned for your participation and rehearsals are on Monday evenings at 7pm. We meet in the Hulsey Center Recital Hall, located on the first floor (lower level) of the Hulsey Center 950 13th Street, S. We perform contemporary, as well as traditional American Gospel Music on and off campus.

Registration is required to participate!

The UAB Gospel Choir has two nationally released music CD’s (Lessons For Life and LIVE) and one music video (Magnify Him). Each semester we are presented in concert on campus but we do take engagements in Birmingham and throughout the Southeast. Students are only required to attend Monday rehearsals and the concert but are encouraged to utilize all performance opportunities. We are recording our 3rd project, a LIVE CD & DVD this semester on the Monday before Thanksgiving at the Alys Stephens Center.

In addition, the choir loves to travel and to sing together at various venues. During Spring Break in 2006 and 2007, we toured the Midwest and performed in several cities, while enjoying the fun things as well. We normally travel in 2-3 buses with 4 to a room. In 2008 we plan to tour the Southeast (Mobile, Pensacola, Miami, Jacksonville, SC, Chattanooga, and the ATL).

Auditions are not necessary to join.
Currently, auditions have been suspended to take this course and to be a part of the UAB Gospel Choir. However, (again) you must register. Auditions held internally for lead vocals and instrumentalists. Look for the (MUP) Course Name when registering is “Gospel Choir,” MUP 110 8M. For more information contact me at 934-6155 or at kturner@uab.edu.

Visit this web site to hear and see the choir:
http://www.music.uab.edu/Ensembles/UAB_Gospel_Choir.html

We’re on youtube.com (just type in UAB Gospel Choir and performances from various semesters and out of town engagements will appear). Also we are working on our page at www.myspace.com/uabgospelchoir

Tour Web site:
http://www.uabgospeltour.org (only active when touring)

The University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Music is a All Steinway School!

FYI - FACTS AND FIGURES
“Winner of the 2007 Alabama People’s Choice Award – College Choir of the Year”
We're on youtube.com!

• The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Gospel Choir, directed by Kevin P. Turner, is a performance class in the UAB Department of Music. The choir celebrated its 11th anniversary November 20, 2006. For the past 10 years, the UAB Gospel Choir has served as a national and international ambassador for the university. Enrollment in the UAB Gospel Choir continues to grow each semester, rising from 38 voices in 1995 to an average of 145 members each semester. Enrollment exceeded 200 members when the choir was open to the community. Currently, the UAB Gospel Choir is open to all UAB students of all majors for academic credit (one hour repeatable). They perform traditional and contemporary American gospel music. International Impact: Students have been recruited to sing in the choir from the West Indies, Switzerland, throughout the USA and France. The U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic (Prague) is a fan of the choir.

• The UAB Gospel Choir toured the Midwest during the Spring of 2006 with three buses of choir members, dance team and band. Stops included universities, high schools, performing arts schools, churches and concert halls in Chicago, Peoria, Macomb, Saint Louis and Boiling Brook, Illinois. The tour received critical acclaim in newspapers and on television and resulted in recruitment to UAB. The choir returns to the Midwest in 2007, with a tour stop at the Illinois State Capital in Springfield, to perform for a joint session. For updated information pertaining to the 2007 tour, please visit our tour website at www.uabgospeltour.org.

• The group’s first CD, “UAB Gospel Choir - Live!” released in September 1997, was the first offering from the UAB Entertainment! record label. The song “Everybody Ought to Know” from the CD went to No. 1 and No. 3 on the Canadian charts. The song “Magnify Him” from the CD was one of the most popular videos on Black Entertainment Television (BET) for several weeks.

• The UAB Gospel Choir has performed locally with the Birmingham Metropolitan Orchestra, the ASO and likewise with internationally renowned artists including: Stevie Wonder, Ruben Studdard, Vanessa Bell-Armstrong, Daryl Coley, and Lee Greenwood. Equally important the UAB Gospel Choir has opened for artists including Tonex, Kirk Franklin, Fred Hammond, Karen Clark-Sheard and Dottie Peoples. In addition this choir was featured in its own TV special on the former Time Warner Cable Company in Birmingham, AL. In November 2004. Also in November 2004, they took the stage with William Murphy, J. Moss and L. Spencer Smith & Testament at the Hallelujah 105.9FM music festival in Bessemer, AL.

• The choir’s second CD, “Lessons for Life,” was released nationwide in early 2002 and earned national radio recognition. The song “I’m Glad You Got Here” was added to the XM Satellite Radio play list. In addition,” I’m Glad You Got Here” was selected in May 2002 as one of the top 10 songs on the Myriad Gospel Countdown, heard in 15 states every Sunday morning and remains a favorite in the Birmingham, Alabama listening area. Perfect Peace, Amen, Thank you and Wait on the Lord remains in rotation throughout the US according to BMI reports. Turner wrote and arranged the entire recording and served as assistant producer with Grammy award winner and UAB University Professor Henry Panion III, Ph.D., on the UAB Entertainment! record label. In addition, local talents from area churches are featured on the CD.

• The UAB Gospel Choir was featured in the filming of a documentary produced by Dr. Henry Louis Gates - Harvard's chair of Afro-American Studies, "Black America in the 21st Century, journey through the South." The show aired in September 2003 on PBS and the BBC. In addition, the UAB Gospel Choir is featured in the 10th Anniversary commercial footage of the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center (Kevin Turner wrote the jingle – Love It Live!).

The UAB Gospel Choir has performed for former Miss America Heather Whitestone and former first lady Barbara Bush. In addition, the choir has performed for the United States Secretary of Education, celebrations at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, the inaugural ceremonies for Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, the inaugural prayer breakfast with Martin Luther King III, the Alabama Commission on Higher Education (ACHE) annual convention, the Birmingham Heritage Festival, Birmingham’s City Stages Music Festival, on ESPN II and the Edmund Pettus Bridge Celebration in Selma, Ala.

• Our new, third CD will be recorded Fall 2007 and released Spring 2008