Oh, Happy Day

Soweto Gospel Choir

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Smothers Theatre-- Pepperdine University

Malibu, CA

Back when I was ordering season tickets for this season, it was in order to obtain tickets for Rockapella as a subscriber.  One of the performers that I was going to see was Susan Egan...whose concert ended up being the same day as Rockapella's in San Luis Obispo.  Oh, the irony!  As a subscriber, though, I was allowed to switch my tickets to another show, and decided on  Soweto Gospel Choir.  Linda and Lori were able to go with me, so Lori and I drove to Malibu and met up with Linda there, who was smart enough to have chocolate to share with us before the show, because we hadn't had time for dinner beforehand.

Wow, this choir was absolutely amazing.  They had wonderful voices.  They were wearing beautifully bright-colored clothing.  They exuded spirituality and grace.  They clearly were having fun on stage, and I wished that I was in the choir with them, even though I knew that my voice could not hold a candle to the richness of all of theirs.  They did some incredible African dancing, which just made me want to go home and try to kick my feet up over my head and clap, just to see if I could do it (I can't).  They even performed a piece called "In the Canteen", which was a percussion performance with dining utensils, much like "Trashin' the Camp" from Disney's "Tarzan".  Their songs included original material, as well as arrangements of songs familiar to an American audience, such as "Amazing Grace", "Bridge Over Troubled Water",  "One Love", and "Oh Happy Day", which was my personal favorite American song of the evening.   

Here's a little bit with the dancing that I can't do:

Yes, there were plenty of moments when I didn't understand what they were singing (despite the short translations recited beforehand), but they were filled with such glory and happiness that I beamed nonetheless.  Linda said to me at intermission, "You are just loving this, aren't you?"  and I teasingly said, "Oh, I can't stand it!"  I smiled from note one until the last one.  One of the choir members was celebrating a birthday that night, and they sang "Happy Birthday" to her.  Lori and I had just been talking about how nice it is to have a choir sing that song in harmony, and there we were, listening to it, and it was great.  I was really glad at the end when we were encouraged to stand up and dance along, because I'd wanted to do so for most of the evening.  

I was uplifted, I was happy, I felt blessed.  

What an amazing end to my subscriber season at Pepperdine.