Oak Grove youths join gospel concert

By: CHARLES HAND - For the Californian
Annual event will be Saturday | Thursday, January 31, 2008 8:34 PM PST ∞

TEMECULA ---- There will be a new aspect to the sixth annual Gospel Music Concert, scheduled for Saturday at Hope Lutheran Church.

A girls choir and a boys drumestra from Oak Grove, a residential facility for special needs and at-risk youngsters, will share the program with the Gospel Music Workshop of America Choir from Los Angeles.

Stacey Dove-Daniels, who provides an arts program for students at Oak Grove, said the drumestra is a 10-piece drum group composed of boys ranging in age from 8 to 18 who started as a rowdy, undisciplined class whose members had trouble with concentration and anger control.

In the first couple of months after Musicians Workshop donated the drums, the drumestra meetings more nearly resembled chaos than classes, she said.

But, after those first rocky months, the students began to focus, began to take an interest in what they were doing and, taking cues from the adults around them, started playing as a unit. Their efforts will culminate Saturday with their performance.

It was pretty much the same for members of the girls choir, Dove-Daniels said. What began as rather disorganized has become a cohesive unit that has not only learned the numbers they will sing, but has learned a great deal about living in the larger world, as well as the benefits of self-discipline and focus.

"Kids benefit from this greatly," Dove-Daniels said. "It provides a creative outlet, but it also provides interaction with the community. It provides socialization and stimulates their intellect. Many times they're not even aware it's therapy because they're having so much fun."

Dove-Daniels also works with the youngsters at Musicians Workshop, sponsor of the gospel concert, which celebrates Black History Month and is dedicated to the memory of Agnes Diggs, a columnist with The Californian.

For the sixth year, the Gospel Music Workshop of America Choir will headline the show under the direction of Rodena Preston.

Preston got involved with the concerts in the inaugural year because Musicians Workshop founder Jon Laskin had performed with her brother, the late singer Billy Preston.

Since that first concert, Preston said, the choir, which has 125 voices, about 45 of whom will perform here, has picked up a number of members from the Temecula Valley, enough that she said it is time to consider a chapter of the Gospel Music Workshop of America here.

Laskin said Musicians Workshop sponsors the concerts, in part, to allow residents to see people from an era that is rapidly ending.

"A lot of these people are getting older," he said. "They project the music from their origins."

Gospel is the foundation for jazz, the only art form that originated in the U.S., Laskin said. Actually, he said, gospel is an art form of its own and is also an American original.

Gospel arose from the churches of the slave era. It was one of the few public expressions the slaves were allowed. The music became not only an expression of religious belief, but a form of communication among slaves who could often communicate no other way.

Jazz was founded on that musical form and also grew out of the black experience.

The last of those present at the birth of jazz are nearing the end of their lives, Laskin said.

"This is the world's last chance to see the generation that saw the founders of jazz. When they're gone, you'll be able to see it on PBS maybe, but that's all."

Sixth annual Gospel Music Concert

When: 5 p.m. Saturday

Where: Hope Lutheran Church, 29141 Vallejo Ave., Temecula

Cost: $15

Info: 678-2517

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