AKRON, Ohio — Back in 1993, a team of leaders from various Akron communities dreamed up a concert.
The mission was not only to bridge the long-established if ephemeral gap between two musical genres, but also to build a bridge between the communities that love the respective styles.
The Greater Akron Musical Association, parent organization of the Akron Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, wanted to find a way to attract and appeal to minorities. They researched ideas that had been tried in other orchestras around the country, melding classical music with non-classical in organic ways that respected and highlighted both styles of music.
The effort was spearheaded by the orchestra’s late music director, Alan Balter, who set about finding someone in the gospel community who would share the vision. “He spoke to me about it and I was quite excited,” said Cleo Myricks, who became the as-yet-untitled event’s inaugural choir director.
“I invited him over to my house and we talked for a long time about what could be. We’d never had anything like this before and I felt … that it could be grand,” Myricks said as she sat in the front pew of Arlington Church of God, where she was choir director.
“So we talked about how to get music, and I was big help to him. But he was a big help to me, because I had never worked with an orchestra before, but I had a whole lot of dreams. So I told him about my dreams and he told me about getting this gospel meeting symphony together and we named it there in my house: Gospel Meets Symphony,” she said. “I know I sounded crazy, but I just had a whole lot of ‘wanting to do, happy to do, glad to do.’ ”
The musical and social experiment has become a community tradition that will mark a quarter of a century today at E.J. Thomas Hall. The Gospel Meets Symphony 25th Anniversary Celebration will feature pieces that span the concert’s history, including “All In His Hands,” which was performed at the first concert in January 1994.
The first GMS brought together pieces such as Aaron Copland’s well-known “Fanfare For the Common Man with Martin Luther King” from Duke Ellington’s jazz- and gospel-infused symphonic work “Three Black Kings.” Alongside the classic gospel and orchestral songs — “We Will Overcome,” “Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus” — was an original song, “Stand,” written by Charles Myricks Jr., son of Cleo, who brought along his gospel group Divine Hope. The group will perform the song again at the anniversary concert.
Charles Myricks admits when Balter, associate conductor Eric Benjamin and ASO executive director Connie Linsler came to him with the idea, he was skeptical.
“Oftentimes when you cross genres, there’s a loss of understanding about the integrity or the quality or the perceived musicianship in some other area,” he said. “So the idea of trying to join gospel and symphony was something completely unheard of for us.”
Charles Myricks noted that the few other times he had seen pieces attempted, the result was more often “gospel and symphony sharing a stage, not necessarily melding into a new way of communicating together.” But he was impressed by Balter’s dedication to the idea of more than just sharing a stage — the orchestra would be participating in gospel and the choir would sing classical pieces with the orchestra.
“Alan had a desire to build a bridge that was so authentic and so real that he won us.”
A timeless show
The pair of musicians hit it off, showing each other some of the intricacies of their respective music genres. Current Music Director Christopher Wilkins recalled a story he heard about those first meetings.
“In the very beginning, Chuck would be coming over to Alan’s house, sitting in the living room, and Chuck would be at the piano playing gospel pieces and then Alan would teach him “Hava Nagila” and they’d be dancing around like at a Jewish wedding.”
Myricks said, “We sang and danced in a round, a.k.a. Israeli style in my living room. It was great.”
Balter died in 1998, but Gospel Meets Symphony kept going with subsequent musical directors and guest conductors, including Benjamin (who took over for Balter), Charles Floyd, Rev. Raymond Wise and Roland Carter. In 2006 Wilkins became the music director and conductor of the Akron Symphony Orchestra, and one of his first big assignments was figuring out how to join the community tradition that was brand new to him, something he admits was daunting.
“I had done nothing like it. It has happened other places but it’s very unusual to have it for 25 consecutive years without interruption and as strong as it is. Very few cities have something like that,” Wilkins said.
“I’d done a lot of community collaborations, a lot of partnerships, a lot of mixing of genres, but gospel music in general wasn’t something I was familiar with, so in the beginning I was really intimidated. I felt like there was a lot of people on stage who were better qualified to lead this thing than I was.”
He continued, “The good thing was that there was leadership coming from every corner. We had (current chorus master) Jennifer Jones, the awesome rhythm section and the soloists themselves and the chorus, and the section leaders of the chorus and the arrangers. It’s really a team of experts that makes it happen; it’s not the conductor by any means.
“So over time, I came to appreciate that it really is community-driven, and that’s the beauty of it, and I don’t have to worry about or be too concerned about getting everything right. Everyone pretty much knows what their job is,” Wilkins said.
He praised the committee and the complex system of planning that requires figuring out the basics as early as possible so everyone can get into rehearsals.
Wilkins said for the big 25th anniversary show, the chorus members had plenty of suggestions: some of the greatest hits, popular gospel tunes and GMS staples such as “All In His Hands.”
Throughout its history, the size of the chorus has fluctuated, with local churches always lending their support. But this year’s edition boasts 175 members representing 45 area churches. Wilkins suspects many singers who have performed in the past want to be a part of the anniversary celebration.
Built on community
Jennifer Mekel Jones is celebrating her own anniversary: 2018 marks a full decade that she has been GMS chorus master. The ordained minister and professional gospel singer, who has had music on the Billboard gospel charts, admits she wasn’t all that excited about the job initially, because she already had a plate full of community, musical and spiritual responsibilities.
“My focus had always been choral and not orchestral, so those were big shoes to fill, and I was very much aware of those that preceded me. So it was with reluctance that I took the job,” Jones said. “But I’m really glad that I did because it gave me so much of an opportunity to grow, as well as meet a new family. And that’s how they have always treated me, as family.”
Everyone involved with the organization speaks about the familial and community aspect as much as the music, and contends at the heart of GMS’s success is the people.
“It was built on a rock. And the rock consisted of the truth of the music, and the truth of the message and the people,” Charles Myricks said.
“There was nothing that was phony about it. … We just did it because we loved good music and we came to appreciate each other.”
Jones concurred. “It’s never been just a concert or just a thing; It’s always something that is centered around (on) people,” she said.
“It’s always been a wonderful way to highlight what happens in Akron. And how we all have the ability to work together and come together and to embrace not only our similarities, but also our differences, and be able to celebrate them. … That’s always been at the heart of what GMS represents, and that’s something that is timeless.
“It is always something that has been welcomed by our community and is a wonderful testament to our community as a whole. And that’s why it’s still here and, hopefully, it will outlive us all.”
