NEW CD RELEASE ADVERTISEMENT - First Posting

KEEP ON THE LOOK OUT FOR THIS NEW EXCITING RELEASE - It’s Coming!!!!

Dear Friends,

After many years of involvement in music, I am pleased to announce that the first ever CD under my direction will soon be available. It features the “Baha’i Gospel Choir” live in concert in the Centre Culturel de Bonnevoie in Luxembourg during the summer of 2004.

Though this CD is not a studio CD, I hope that you will find that it captures the spirit of that 2004 Baha’i Gospel Choir Concert Tour of western Europe. While there is really NOT a group that is named the Baha’i Gospel Choir, I adopted the name to clearly identify this group and to ensure that our focus would be on the Baha’i Faith, but more importantly, a spiritual experience for all the dedicated singers and their audiences.

We concentrated on music from the African-American experience and featured both gospel music and the Negro Spiritual. Though the concert tour featured the same songs generally, each concert had a character and spirit of its own. Nearly half of the 100 singers were of African descent and most all were adherents of the Baha’i Faith. They represented 26 states in the US and 13 countries in the world. Accompanying us were three world-class non-Baha’i gospel musicians from the United States. Dr. Joyce Garrett, Director of the Naval Academy Gospel Choir, Patrick Lundy, Founder and Director of the Ministers of Music, and Lester Saucer, drummer. All three accompanied the the Baha’i Gospel Choir at the 10 year reunion concert held in New York City in 2002.

All concerts were filled with spirit and often the choir members found themselves in tears as we tried to convey the joy of being Baha’is while also celebrating an African heritage that is all too easily forgotten.

As it happened, this particular concert was recorded live on two stage mikes. So, there could be no significant engineering of the voices as is normally done on recorded music. Nevertheless, the sound is the true sound of the choir as it performed that evening AND IT IS EXCITING!! Many songs are based on the Baha’i Holy Writings and several are updated from original recordings. Songs like “We Have Come to Sing Praises,” “I’m So Glad,” “If We Ever Needed Love,” and “Be Thou Content” take on new spirit and come alive with new arrangements.

The Concert Tour featured some of the original soloists of the “We Have Come To Sing Praises” CD published in 1993. Such outstanding soloists as Adrienne Ewing-Roush, Sean Gilmer, and Kay Yoder accompanied the choir….and I’m there as well. In addition, many other soloists emerged and made their own contribution to the success of the tour.

This is a MUST HAVE CD that will be available first through Sweet Melody Productions.

I hope that you will keep on the lookout for this CD as it nears release. First announcements of details will appear at http://www.Bahaigospel.org/

With warmest greetings,
VAN GILMER