A look at how two faith-based groups have used music to inspire and connect with attendees.
By Kate Burton
Music is the great bridge,” says Chris Wangro, president of New York-based Zaragunda Inc. and producer and creator of live events, such as the papal rally in Yonkers, New York, this past April. “Adding music to the spoken word and prayer creates a unique bond between the audience and what’s happening on the stage. You create a whole other layer of meaning.” Today’s faith-based music can take many forms, from an all-volunteer choir specializing in hymns to professionals who run the gamut from gospel music to rap. Here we take a look at how music transformed two very different events but functioned in a similar way, enhancing the message and the experience.
Papalpalooza: Rallying Youth
Pairing a speech by the Pope with contemporary rock musicians might not be an obvious choice, but it’s one that drew more than 30,000 young people and seminarians to St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers, New York, this past April. “The Pope’s mission was to connect with youths,” says Wangro. “What better way to connect with youths than with the music they listen to?”
Wangro’s role as producer of the youth rally was to “create the event from soup to nuts,” he says, citing everything from arranging for sanitary facilities to incorporating the liturgy to booking the musicians.
So how did an event producer who’s not even Catholic get involved with organizing such a massive project? “Years ago, I was director of special events for New York City and had arranged some of the largest concerts in New York’s history,” he says. “I was no longer in that position when Pope John Paul II came to New York in 1995, but the Archdiocese of New York called upon me to organize that event. Twelve years later, they found me again and asked me to pull together this event for Pope Benedict XVI.”
Not surprisingly with such a large event, Wangro found himself working with multiple organizations to coordinate everything, including the executive producer of the papal visit, the education director at the Archdiocese of New York, representatives from the Vatican, and people at the seminary itself. “They had a lot of great ideas—some that work in real life and some that don’t. My job was to take their ideas and bring them to life so they could achieve their goals. And their goal was simple—to connect the Holy Father with the youth of America, and to bring his spirit to the kids in the field, and also to enliven his own spirit with that connection.”
Right from the start, Wangro added some insight that completely changed the face of the event. “The original idea was to have all local kids’ groups perform,” he says. “But as good as some of those groups are, they’re used to performing in a church or a school auditorium for 200 people. Put them on a stage in front of 30,000 people and you’re just setting them up to fail.”
Enter Wangro’s professional connections. A few calls to the right people and he locked in some of the top performers in the industry, even though no pay was involved. “I picked up the phone, called the top people, and asked if they’d like to have their performers share the papal stage. They were all so proud and pleased and excited—for both spiritual and professional reasons.”
The end result was a combination of some 14 local groups and half a dozen professional musicians, mixed throughout the day. “Basically we created a daylong rock festival. I do that all that time, but I don’t usually have the Pope attending! We needed to find a way to combine the spiritual aspect with the music aspect.” And what do you get when you combine the Pope with a music festival? “Papalpalooza,” of course.
The doors opened at 9 in the morning and the music was slated to start at noon, but Wangro says they started at about 10:30 instead. “We were all there and ready to go, so we just started,” he says. Performers covered a wide range of styles, from the “rapping priest” Father Stan Fortuna to the Latin-flavored Salvador, from the hip-hop styles of Toby Mac to the upbeat folk rock tunes of Full Armor. The headliner was Kelly Clarkson of American Idol fame.
“For a commercial show, I would have started off with the amateurs and built up to the professionals,” says Wangro, “but the message we wanted to get across here was that we’re all part of a community and we’re all here to celebrate together, so it made more sense to mix in the professionals with the amateurs. From a programming perspective, it was all unified by the passionate spirituality and the deep and joyful faith that all the performers brought to the stage.”
To accommodate the fast-moving schedule, Wangro defined multiple performance areas on the large stage. “We were able to have one group breaking down as another one came on,” he says, noting that the setup reduced the typical downtime that would occur between artists’ sets.
Another logistical challenge was compressing sound checks and rehearsals into the short period before the event. “We started two days before the show, with very early mornings and working late into the night to get everyone onto the stage,” says Wangro. “We managed to get everyone on except for one group—and that was due to really careful planning and a great stage manager.”
Ultimately, he says, “It all runs on the strength of the team,” which numbered 600 people in the days leading up to the event. In the end, some 30,000 youths danced and celebrated as they waited for the rare American appearance of the Pope. “It’s all about the spirit of the day,” says Wangro. “We brought together youths from all over and the music helped unite them with each other and the message of the Pope.”
National Baptists:
Music for the 21st Century
When the National Baptist Convention USA Inc. met at Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Convention Center in September 2007, music filled the halls. While the convention always incorporates music into its annual meeting, this time the whole focus of the convention was “Christian Music for the 21st Century.”
“Music has historically been important to the black church,” says the Reverend Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr., author of The Ministry of Music in the Black Church, pastor of the Monumental Baptist Church in Philadelphia, and director of music and worship for the National Baptist Convention. He was also the “chairman of musical” for the 2007 convention, meaning he had overall responsibility for music during the convention.
With all that background, Mapson was also a natural choice as the keynote speaker for the opening session, as well as the keynote speaker for the Legends Awards Banquet. “Traditionally and historically, preaching and singing have been the centerpiece of our worship—we don’t do anything without music,” says Mapson, whose keynote speech focused on the challenge of ensuring that music as part of worship is driven by “a biblically sound and theologically sound understanding of music in the church, rather than just entertainment,” he says. “We have to be firm in our attempt to preserve the music of our heritage and at the same time embrace contemporary music, while always asking the question of what the music is saying theologically. Historically, we have learned through music, so what is our music teaching us today?”
Mapson had the chance to answer that question not just in words during his speech, but in his actions with the music that was designed for the convention. As is tradition for the convention, the festivities opened with a three-hour musical performance on Monday night before getting down to business on Tuesday morning. Not only does the musical performance set a tone of spirituality for the coming convention, but on a practical level, it’s a moneymaker for the convention, with some 10,000 tickets sold for the performance in 2007.
Mapson says the goal for the musical was “to set a standard in Philadelphia of what we thought the music ought to be. That means a balance of musical offerings so it’s not just hymns or traditional gospel, but also contemporary music; meter hymn, which is old-style singing without accompanying music; and other styles.” To that end, he pulled together a choir of about 750 adults from churches all over the metro region, along with a youth component of about 150 performers. Mapson says the first challenge in organizing such a choir is simply getting the word out. “How do you reach all the churches in Philadelphia? There are so many churches that aren’t necessarily connected with anything and we had to find a way to reach them. We put it on the radio, sent out fliers, and made announcements at religious gatherings.”
Another early challenge was maintaining enthusiasm throughout the necessary rehearsals and ensuring the participants took their role seriously. “We didn’t want to start too early,” says Mapson, “because enthusiasm can wane if it drags on. To ensure participants’ commitment, we charged $15 for the music packet, which included a registration fee for the convention.”
Organizing rehearsals for people who lived all over the city was also tricky. The group brought in as conductor Dr. James Abbington, associate professor of music and worship at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, but also had rehearsals in between times when the whole group met. “Sometimes we separated groups by geography, sometimes by alto, bass, tenor, etc.,” says Mapson, “so groups could continue to rehearse even when he wasn’t in town.”
Several other logistical issues cropped up along the way, such as arranging buses to transport all the choir participants to a dress rehearsal on Sunday and the actual event on Monday; creating a general dress code (women in white; men in white shirts, black ties, and black pants); and the design, creation, and printing of tickets to the event.
Mapson also worked with the convention center on staging issues. “A convention center is not the ideal venue for a musical performance,” he says. “We had to bring in risers and position both the musicians and the conductor so that everyone could see him.” The singers were accompanied by a handful of musicians on drums, a concert organ, a Hammond organ, and a piano, along with a small brass ensemble of four. The convention center was able to provide most of the instruments, but Mapson says the group rented the Hammond organ “because the pieces we chose called for an organ of that magnitude.” Coordination was required with the convention center and the union workers for delivery of the organ, as well as dismantling the organ the next day in a way that didn’t interrupt the sessions taking place.
Coordinating such a large group requires a lot of extra work, but Mapson says that all the effort was well worth it. “This is the event that gives definition and direction to the whole rest of the convention.”
The Power of Music
Music is just one category of product that Christian retailers sell, along with Bibles, books, apparel, greeting cards, and more. But it’s important enough that CBA, the trade association for the Christian Retail Channel, has been hosting a Power of Music event for the past three years at its annual International Christian Retail Show. Hosted in conjunction with the Gospel Music Association (GMA), the event features multiple artists, says Julie Jacobson, event planner for the CBA. “We try to bring in a mix of styles, such as Southern gospel, along with contemporary, male and female performers, groups and individuals, so our members can have more exposure to the artists and different styles of music,” she says.
This year, CBA and GMA have added another element to the July convention: a contest called Songs That Changed My Life. Attendees were invited to submit essays about a song by a Christian artist that has affected them; winners will be able to go backstage at the Power of Music event to meet the performers. At press time, the winners hadn’t yet been selected, but Jacobson says the attendee response has been positive.
“Christian retailers change lives every day with the products and services they offer their customers, including the gospel and Christian music sold in their stores. We want to know what music has changed their own lives,” says John W. Styll, president and CEO of GMA. “What songs encouraged them, inspired them, or comforted them through a significant season or experience? We believe the power of music communicated through these personal stories can inspire all of us.”
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