Two vastly different religious traditions find a common musical voice

Gospel choir from a Maryland church and a Washington Jewish centre chorus are learning to celebrate in harmony



Members of the Turner AME choir came out into the audience at the Sixth & I synagogue as part of a joint prayer session at the beginning of the evening worship service. Photograph: Michael S Williamson/Washington Post

Michelle Boorstein for the Washington Post
Guardian Weekly, Friday 7 February 2014 09.00 EST

The rabbi's email inquiry to the black pastor last spring was blunt: how crazy would it be to start a Jewish gospel choir? And would you help? Soon after, the Reverend William H Lamar IV, pastor of Turner Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church in Hyattsville, Maryland, put Rabbi Shira Stutman, the elfin spark-plug spiritual leader at Washington's downtown Jewish centre Sixth & I, in touch with his younger brother, Marty Lamar, Turner's assistant musical leader. Thus last summer, the 6th in the City Chorus was born.

Interfaith efforts – people from different spiritual backgrounds joining for community service or clergy discussing scripture – are one thing. But a black Christian worship leader teaching a bunch of mostly Jewish young novice singers to belt out Hebrew prayers set to gospel music?

"We laughed and said: 'This is the craziest thing I've ever heard of. But wouldn't it be a gift back to God if we were able to do it?'" chuckled Marty Lamar, 35, a soft-spoken man who was an actor in professional musical theatre and a teacher before coming to Turner.

The 21-person chorus, which Stutman calls a "ragtag group", began meeting on Monday nights with Lamar to practice. The chorus has sung at several services, including one at a Baltimore synagogue and Sixth & I's popular high-holiday events in the autumn. Last month the fledgling choir performed at two raucous, jam-packed Martin Luther King Jr worship services – one Friday night at the synagogue and one Sunday morning at the church.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/07/jewish-christian-gospel-choir-mixed-faith