Workshop Brings Gospel Music Sounds to S.D.

Gospel music enjoyed something of a revival in San Diego this week as singers and musicians from throughout the country converged on the city for four days.

About 1,000 members of Gospel Music Workshop of America Inc., the largest gospel music organization in the United States, flocked to the city to plan their 23rd annual convention, to be held in Washington in August.

It had been 10 years since the group held a planning session in San Diego, and, until last year, even longer since a local group chapter had been active here.

A San Diego chapter was formed in June by Rose Buchanan at Good Shepherd Missionary Baptist Church in Southeast San Diego. Local participation led the national group’s board of directors to choose San Diego as the host site for this year’s board meeting, said Edward M. Smith, executive administrator of the group, who said the city has a “viable black community which was able to accommodate our group.”

During the meeting, representatives of 60 chapters nationwide attended planning sessions at a Mission Bay hotel to map out the summer convention.

After each day’s board meeting, nightly contemporary gospel music was performed at Bayview Baptist Church in Southeast San Diego. On opening night Tuesday, a representative of Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s office proclaimed this “Gospel Music Week.”

On Thursday night, choirs from all over California streamed into the multilevel church. Buchanan’s choir was the first to perform for the audience of several hundred people, who rocked the building as some banged tambourines to the beat of the backup musicians’ drums and guitars.

San Diego’s last gospel chapter folded more than 12 years ago, after its founders left the city.

Buchanan, who has been a member of the national association for 19 years, moved to San Diego from Dallas a few years ago. Realizing “there was a need for professional sacred music in the area,” she reestablished a chapter here. It began with 25 members and now has 171. “And we are still recruiting,” she said.

“We plan to praise God through gospel music and minister to gang members, drug addicts and people in nursing homes,” Buchanan said. The group has sponsored four concerts since it was formed.

The national group promotes religious music and offers musical instruction. Since it was established in 1968 by the Rev. James Cleveland of Los Angeles, a two-time Grammy winner, its planning meetings have been held in March and its conventions the third week in August.

Over the years, membership has grown to more than 24,000, said Norma Jean Pender, public relations director for the group, which is interdenominational and nonprofit and includes musicians, singers, songwriters and record producers.

The summer convention will offer at least 40 workshops for its delegates, in such areas as orchestration, piano, voice, liturgical dance and ballet.

“The purpose of the (workshop) is to perpetuate America’s only original (music) form while giving aspiring artists an opportunity to perform in some of the largest and finest arenas and theaters in the country before vast audiences,” said Yvonne Samuel-Kirkwood, a spokeswoman for the convention.

“The convention’s primary goal is to train and establish gospel musicians and to develop new types of community action groups,” she said.

Each year, more than 3,000 delegates participate in mass choir rehearsals, from which live recordings of songs written by the performers are made.

The national organization’s long-range goal is to build an accredited college to teach gospel music.