For us, it’s one of the ways we bring music to people who can’t go to theaters or auditoriums.
During the months of March and April, we’ve performed concerts in different senior centers on the islands of Lanzarote, Gran Canaria, Tenerife, and also in the city of Seville. For us, it’s a key date in the calendar that we don’t want to miss.
Putting words to what we experience at each concert is very complicated, but we want to try to share our experience with you.
We arrive early in the afternoon, and when we set up our instruments and decide where we’ll be performing, the audience is already waiting for us, usually watching a program on TV or talking among themselves. The first glances we receive are those of very thoughtful people, making up their own story in their minds about who we are, what we’re here to do at their house, always in the expectation of not knowing us and not knowing if they’ll like it (this is what I think is happening). When our performance ends, I see their gaze change, their way of observing is different, and it always reflects a grateful, smiling heart, a few tears of happiness, nostalgia, and the desire to sing all afternoon. The first times we perform these concerts, or when new people join the choir, they think the residents won’t like it because it’s a different style of music and in a language they’re not familiar with. But the reality is different. When we finish the concerts, we always receive words of gratitude for coming, for spending a little time with them making music, conveying to us that in that moment we had taken them out of the context they were in and their minds had been transported to some auditorium they had attended in previous years.
The important thing isn’t whether it’s gospel or in English; the important thing is that we make them part of a society to which they belong, making culture accessible by bringing it closer to home, and as a way of expressing gratitude for what they have contributed and continue to contribute to our society. Many of the things we enjoy today are thanks to our elders.
Together, music to share, is one of the most important projects for the Gospel School of the Canary Islands, which it promotes through the social project We Are People.
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