Welcome to the British Gospel Arts Choir
Leading British Gospel Music Education Specialists
Training choir
The British Gospel Arts Choir (formerly The B.I.G. Choir) was established in April 2012, in response to demand for a gospel-training choir. Attracting a wide variety of non-auditioned members, The British Gospel Arts Choir provides a place for those who love gospel and inspirational music and want to learn the fundamentals of voice, singing and musicianship.
Singing Experiences
A bespoke Gospel Choral Singing experience can be designed for choirs, community organisations and corporate sector on request.
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How it all began
I want to share with you why I started British Gospel Arts in 1999. It’s not a story that I’ve ever shared till now.
The Millennium 2000 was upon us and between the fear that world technology systems would crash on the dot of midnight, and the excitement of a new year, the world was planning celebrations. I persuaded British Gospel Music journalist and historian, Juliet Fletcher, that we must also mark the Millennium with a grand gospel music venture. We pulled together a consortium of stakeholders in British Gospel Music from across England. British Gospel Arts Consortium was born in June 1999. We applied for and were successful in receiving funds from London Arts Board (£30K) and the Millennium Commission (£50k) to stage G2K events in 2000.
G2K events comprised:
- Research & Development in Gospel Music Education across England
- Training in Delivering Classroom Education for Gospel Music practitioners (Birmingham & London)
- Gospel Choir workshops in Schools across England
- Two-day Gospel Choral Festival at Shepherds Bush Empire featuring church choirs from across England with a guest choir from Norway
The legacy of G2K events was the demand for gospel music education in schools at all levels, universities, churches, corporate bodies and communities. An essential part of BGAC gospel music education was the history of gospel music and the context of its power. For the next seventeen years, a team of tutors and I delivered gospel music education workshops, set up choirs and organised choir festivals, across the UK and Europe.
In 2012, after struggling with the right training model for delivering in-house community choir training for amateurs, I started a choir that would be based on an annual membership, delivering core stability and choral progress. That was the B.I.G. Choir. Everyone asked me what B.I.G. stood for? I encouraged them to put whatever meaning they wished to the initials. Trust me, there were some funny names created. The truth is though, (now don’t laugh), I was thinking of Notorious B.I.G.! I wanted a choir that reflected my spirit: bold, energetic, edgy, political, concerned for the underdog, unafraid to speak out. And those were the people attracted to the choir. They came flooding in from all over!
In 2016, I closed down the Consortium’s work, except for the choir bit, to return home to Trinidad and Tobago to care for my father who had colon cancer. He passed in 2018. I remained in T&T to support my mother who is 91. Moving back home is probably one of the best decisions I made, but of course I miss my family in London, my friends and my choir members who are really like a second family to me.
In 2022, we rebranded the choir to British Gospel Arts Choir, because of the proliferation of BIG choirs around. Thanks to Ruth Lynch (past) and Becky Thomas (present), our choir directors, the choir has gone from strength to strength. I mean they produce an amazing sound. And they are a bunch of the most beautiful people on earth.
Over the past six years, I have been in London once or twice a year to commune with them, but somehow they have managed to hold onto my spirit. And we came through the pandemic even stronger, thirsty for our gathering. British Gospel Arts Choir is this rich multi-cultural, multi-age, multi-faith, multi-ethnic, multi-economic (my word!) group of people that genuinely look out for each other and look out for the communities in which they reside. I feel honoured and privileged to facilitate this gathering of souls.
When I was leaving in 2016, I was ready to close it all down, not knowing how I could run the choir from abroad. A team of choir members asked me (begged me really) to reconsider, and committed themselves to helping with the organisation on the UK side. Without them, there would be no choir now.
So I owe it to them, to get out of my lethargy (it’s easy to spend days in the beauty of my tropical garden and hammock, swaying with the gentle cool breezes), and take British Gospel Arts Choir to new heights.
The call for Reparations for the African continent and the African Diaspora is long overdue. I am excited that these conversations are now front and centre stage. No other music tells of the horrors and history of the Slave Trade, Emancipation and Independence than the Spirituals and Gospel Music from America and the Caribbean. It is not ‘happy clappy‘ music. It is music of resilience; a music of overwhelming joy that comes out of the deepest pain. We must never forget this.
Thank you for reading to the end. As always, I want to hear your news too. Don’t leave me alone (:-)
Love and Light
Andrea