UCSD Gospel Choir Course Draws Record 362 Students

Ken Anderson, director of UC San Diego’s Gospel Choir, must be doing something right. Under his direction, this popular university course has doubled its enrollment to 362 members, a number very few rooms on the UCSD campus can accommodate. This is Anderson’s first year as the choir’s director, but for the previous six years he was the group’s piano accompanist.

“Each quarter, the enrollment kept growing,” said Anderson. “Then, this last quarter, we started with 258 students pre-registered, and on the first night they just kept

coming through the door until we were almost at 370. Only Mandeville Auditorium and the ballroom of the Price Student Center are big enough for us.”

Anderson’s charges will sing their annual concert of spirituals and contemporary Gospel music tonight at 8 p.m. in Mandeville Auditorium. Unlike most choral groups, the Gospel Choir learns most of its music by rote.

“For the Gospel music, I sing every line to each section to teach them the piece. Of course, most of the old spirituals have been arranged by various composers, so we use printed music for them.”

Anderson added that he often has to compose his own bass lines for the Gospel music he hears on recordings because the traditional Gospel sound only includes soprano, alto, and tenor voices.

Anderson, who also teaches elementary school music in San Diego and National City, first encountered Gospel music at the age of 6 in church, where he accompanied choirs on the piano. By age 14 he had become minister of music at the Mt. Olive Church of God in Christ in East San Diego.

His UCSD choir encompasses a mix of racial and ethnic groups.

“I don’t think there’s a place on the planet that is not represented by someone in the choir.”

Anderson attributes the choir’s popularity to the drawing power of the music.

“I think many find the music more alive. Compared to other choral music it has a modern sound, which is an advantage.”

Anderson appreciates the enthusiasm of his UCSD students, although many are encountering the tradition of Gospel music for the first time.

“Compared to a Gospel choir made up of singers who know the style, the only difference is in the sound. A traditional church choir of singers who have grown up in the tradition have twice the power of the UCSD group.”

Edging out the classics. When classical music listeners tuned in KPBS-FM (89.5) Monday, they discovered a significant decrease in classical music programming on the local public radio station. KPBS-FM has decided to reduce its previous six-hour midday music segment to a mere four hours, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“We need to do what public radio does best,” explained program director Michael Flaster, “and that’s not playing music from discs.”

After KPBS-FM changed to its midday classical music format in October, 1986, the station enjoyed a significant boost in its ratings during that time slot. It has not been great enough, however, to satisfy the station’s management. Flaster noted that their strongest audience response is to news shows such as “Morning Edition” and the evening “All Things Considered” as well as to the syndicated daily interview program “Fresh Air.”

In keeping with these highly verbal programs, the playing of classical recordings on KPBS-FM will gradually give way to interviews with local musicians and visiting performers conducted by the station’s current classical music disc jockeys Dan Erwine and Dave Arnold.

“We want to keep our ‘Morning Edition’ listeners with this new format,” said Flaster, “because that is the way people use radio. People watch specific television programs, but radio is different--it’s format. They turn to a radio station if they want a certain type of programming , although television is moving in this direction with the all-news CNN and the all-sports ESPN channels.”

The station will also broadcast live concerts, something not done by other local stations.

“We need to present that which isn’t available elsewhere,” he added, “although I think we need to have a musical presence on the air. Overall, I’m looking for a good balance.”

Supertitles win again. San Diego Opera sent a short questionnaire to all of its subscribers last week asking whether the company should provide supertitles (which this company calls “OperaText”) for two English-language operas in the upcoming season. The result, according to opera spokeswoman Brenda Hughes, was a landslide 93% in favor of having the supertitles for Benjamin Britten’s comic opera “Albert Herring” and Carlisle Floyd’s newly revised grand opera “The Passion of Jonathan Wade.”

Since the introduction of OperaText to San Diego Opera productions in 1984, these simultaneous translations of the foreign language librettos have been well-received by opera patrons, although some critics passionately despise them. Most American opera companies use them to some extent, although New York City’s staid Metropolitan Opera staunchly refuses to accommodate this modern convention.

Of the 4,200 questionnaires sent, nearly half have been returned, an unusually high percentage for any survey. Many opera subscribers commented that English is a difficult language to understand when sung, especially in a 3,000-seat hall such as Civic Theatre. One response surprised even the opera staff: an opera subscriber explained that OperaText meant a lot to her because she was hard of hearing.