CU-Boulder will offer several opportunities to enjoy gospel music during Black Awareness Month including The Boyer Brothers Gospel Performance on Thursday, Jan. 29, at 8 p.m. in the Grusin Music Hall, located in the College of Music.
Dr. Horace Clarence Boyer, a Smithsonian Institution scholar, will return to Black Awareness Month to perform a rare concert with his brother, Dr. James Boyer. The concert is sponsored by the American Music Research Center in the College of Music.
The Boyer Brothers have been singing and playing gospel music since their youth and began recording gospel records in Nashville when they were in their teens. As a gospel duet, they wrote and arranged many of their songs and performed in more than 30 states, the District of Columbia and Canada.
A donation of $10 per person is requested. For ticket information call 753-2736.
Boulder-area singers also are invited to participate Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 in the Gospel Music Festival, a long-standing and popular event during CU-Boulders annual observance of Black Awareness Month.
The two-day event will be directed and conducted by Boyer, professor of music theory and Afro-American music at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Boyer has conducted the festival since it began 10 years ago.
The Gospel Music Festival will be preceded by a rehearsal workshop on Saturday, Jan. 31, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Mount Calvary Lutheran Church, 3485 Stanford Court in Boulder.
The combined choirs of Mount Calvary, the Second Baptist Church of Boulder Community Choir and the Second Baptist Church Mens Choir will give a performance conducted by Boyer on Sunday, Feb. 1, at 4 p.m. in Mount Calvary Lutheran Church. The performance is free and open to the public and will be followed by a reception.
Any interested singer who attends the day-long Saturday workshop may join the three church choirs to sing in the Sunday performance. Last year 197 singers participated in the event.
Boyer is a vocal soloist, arranger and music director who has performed in hundreds of gospel concerts throughout the country. He was recognized by the CU Board of Regents at Boulders summer commencement last August with a Distinguished Service Award for his work with the campus and the Boulder community in celebrating Black Awareness Month.
Boyers book, How Sweet the Sound -- The Golden Age of Gospel, was published in 1995 by Elliott and Clark Publishing in Washington, D.C. He also is the editor of a hymnal for the Episcopal Church. Boyer is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and has taught at U-Mass, Amherst since 1973.
Black Awareness Month is a series of discussions, live performances, music, films and social, educational and entertainment events scheduled throughout February at CU-Boulder.
For information on the Gospel Festival call Mount Calvary Lutheran Church at (303) 499-1444. For information about Black Awareness Month call (303) 735-0111.