Rainbow Choir With a Beat : Music: UCSD’s Gospel Choir has become a hot property on this secular university campus. It has grown to 915 students from almost every race and background.

Ken Anderson hasn’t fed a multitude with two loaves and five fishes, nor has he turned water into wine. But his leadership of the UC San Diego Gospel Choir does have a touch of the miraculous about it.

When he became director of the UCSD Gospel Choir in 1989, the ensemble’s enrollment was a mere 80. Within two years, Anderson had enlarged the choir to 915 singers. As surprising as the choir’s tenfold growth may be, even more remarkable is how this fervent sacred music rooted in black evangelical Christian churches has become such a hot property on a secular university campus best known for its brainy research scientists, feisty avant-garde artists, and political scientists of a decidedly leftist bent.

“Gospel music draws people,” Anderson explained in his melodious high baritone. “I have one guy in the choir who told me, ‘I’m really anti-religion, so I don’t understand why I get such a peace singing this music.’ The class itself is fun. I know from reading the recurring comments on the course and professor evaluations that are filled out at the end of every term that the students see the choir as a great release for tension.”

One of the ironies of the current size of the UCSD Gospel Choir is that the chorus cannot perform en masse on campus. Different sections of the choir, which can be taken either as a two-unit or three-unit course, meet on different evenings in the ballroom of the Price Student Center, Monday through Thursday. As the choir is preparing for the annual Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative concert Jan. 20 in the university’s Mandeville Auditorium, Anderson knows he will be able to squeeze only 300 singers--about one-third of the choir--onto the Mandeville stage.

Although Anderson is an ordained elder who serves as minister of music at San Diego’s Mt. Olive Church of God in Christ, the 33-year-old musician is careful to see that the unmistakable religious message of the Gospel Choir’s music does not offend the choir members who come from non-Christian backgrounds.

“It is not a religious class; it is not an evangelical effort. So I don’t preach. Before I was director, the choir always prayed before singing, but I stopped that because I didn’t want to give cause for people to be offended. There are Buddhists in the class; Muslims in the class; Hasidic Jews in the class. People who have finally decided they don’t care: If they gotta say Jesus, they gotta say Jesus!”

Anderson believes the music is a powerful tool that breaches barriers between races and individuals of divergent socioeconomic backgrounds.

“In the Gospel Choir, we have all accents and all races. Once in a concert, I remarked to the audience that we had every variety except Eskimos, and a couple of students in the back row raised their hands to prove me wrong.”

By explaining the genesis of gospel songs to his predominantly white choir, Anderson moves the focus from theology to sociology and American history. He explains that what sets gospel music apart from most Christian sacred music is its intensely personal character, which stems from the harsh historical circumstances in which it grew.

“One of the founders of the Church of God in Christ was a pastor who also wrote music and hymns. After the Ku Klux Klan burned his church down, he stood in the ashes and wrote the song ‘I will make the darkness light before Thee.’ The tragedies that went on in their lives were reflected in their music, and this helps the students who are non-Christian understand.

“A lot of traditional hymns and anthems deal with the greatness, the majesty of God, whereas gospel music tends to deal with Him as a personal God. You have more lines such as, ‘The Lord has been so good to me. He has been my mother, my father, my sister, my brother to me.’ Those were important statements to the people who first sang them because they were separated from their families. God became their family. He wasn’t some remote universal thought. It was important to them to know that He was right there with them.”

Gregarious and confident in his manner, Anderson wears the mantle of leadership with ease. Watching him lead a choir, one would not suspect that he is still a UCSD student pursuing his undergraduate degree.

“Because I’m both student and teacher, I have two ID numbers here. In a way, it’s the best of both worlds: I have staff parking and student discounts.”

When he finishes his degree in a year and a half, Anderson stated, he intends to pursue a doctoral degree so that he can teach elementary school by day and university courses by night.

“I love teaching kids: I was even a kindergarten aide once. In addition to my work at UCSD and the church, I teach singing to 3,000 elementary school children in eight different schools in the San Diego and National City school districts.”

Contemporary gospel music, like the spirituals that preceded it, is unalloyed American music with secular roots, a bit of American history Anderson eagerly imparts to students and members of the UCSD Gospel Choir.

“So much American music is actually influenced by another culture,” he noted. “This music’s roots are actually here in America. Gospel music comes from the Negro spiritual, by way of the blues, then to jazz, rhythm and blues, and then to Gospel. Gospel is a mixture of all of those elements.”

Gospel music has not enjoyed the popularity of these other styles, because the music has remained bound to the worship in black churches. Popular performers steeped in the gospel tradition have turned their backs on their religious roots, unlike the black opera divas who regularly perform and record spirituals.

“A lot of the popular artists, such as Aretha Franklin, got their start in the church. But they were seduced by the notion that, when you get serious with your musical career and make some money, it’s time to leave the church and its music behind.”