Album Notes

The Voices of Imani Gospel Choir was organized in the fall of 1978. Created as a mechanism to celebrate the viability, potency and beauty of gospel music, the choir has not only served as a source of spiritual inspiration, but also as a needed source of strength amongst students of color. "Imani," the Swahili word for "faith," is indicative of what the choir strives to reflect through our faith in our spirituality, faith in our dynamic history as a people of color. The Voices of Imani strives to explore and share the full wealth of the musical culture of Black people as we sing in our profession of faith contemporary gospel music, as well as traditional American Negro Spirituals.

Our mission is to sing praises unto God and minister to our surrounding community using the gifts that God has blessed us with. In years past, Voices has successfully completed tours throughout the United States. Our tours have consisted of ministering on the East Coast in Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, New York and Connecticut. In tour 2000 we branched out further south to Dallas, Houston and Texas. Last year we ventured out to the West coast touring in Los Angeles California and the surrounding areas. This year, we are looking to minister a little closer to home, fulfilling God's will wherever it is he leads us. As a result this provides an atmosphere of encouragement and support, particularly to the students at Boston College as we face our studies and encounter life's uncertainties. The word of the Lord says: "Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with Thanksgiving and extol him with music and song." (Psalms 95:1-2).

Under the direction of Professor Hubert Walters and Elan Trotman of Berklee College of Music, our ministry has been based on the will of God. We work to offer inspiration, encouragement and support to those we minister to, just as we do in our community. We will sing praise and minister with the tools God has blessed us with; our voices.

In our experiences, we have touched many lives, those of our audience members as well as, our choir members. Voices of Imani, has enabled our members to be open to different cultures and experience the goodness of God in ways that they might not have before. Our time together has taught us that God sees no color, nor does he stop loving us because we are different. We have seen first hand that each member's uniqueness contributes to the entire well being of he choir and God loves us all the same, because our differences make us who we are.

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things that I have commanded you." (Matthew 28:19-20).