More Than Just An Empowerment Program: Voices of Our City Choir Puts On a Great Show Downtown November 3

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2024 by Mark Gabrish Conlan for Zenger’s Newsmagazine • All rights reserved

Yesterday (Sunday, November 3) my husband Charles and I went to a free concert in downtown San Diego at an open-air location on 13th and Broadway featuring the Voices of Our City Choir. Originally called the San Diego Homeless Choir, Voices of Our City Choir was founded in 2017 and is an independent nonprofit corporation headed by Steph Johnson, a tough, energetic woman who MC’d yesterday’s show. Voices of Our City Choir seeks to recruit homeless people as a way of helping them out of homelessness. Its Web site, https://www.voicesofourcity.org, describes its mission as follows: “Voices of Our City Choir began out on the street: communing and connecting around music. Six years later, dignity remains the entry into, and experience within, our Choir. In 2022, we expanded our services and introduced new offerings. Voices’s outreach team built relationships with neighbors living outdoors, extending personal invitations to visit our site for a hot shower (a new partnership with Humanity Showers). Our Member Services supports the journey towards permanent housing by connecting Members to essential resources. Our safe, sober community also offers workshops to build self-esteem, and opportunities to nurture creativity.” At the November 3 concert Voices of San Diego, who seemed to number about 15 actual singers plus a substantial support staff also wearing the group’s black T-shirts, were backed by a great five-piece band (electric guitar, electric keyboard, electric bass, drums and trombone). I found myself wondering whether the musicians, too, were homeless or nearly homeless people and whether their instruments are their own or owned by the nonprofit, but whoever they were, they were excellent and really held the music together. The group performed four original songs, including an introduction as well as “Listen to the Sounds of the Sidewalk,” “Falling Upward” and “Dreams Come True (When You’re Being You).” They also sang a number of covers, including Jon Batiste’s “We Are (The Chosen Ones),” Samm Henshaw’s “These Hands,” India Arie’s “Prayer for Humanity,” Black Pumas’ “Colors,” Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing,” Lloysio’s “Give a Little Kindness” and then, as their finale, Kool & The Gang’s “We Are the Party.”

Also on the program were TranscenDANCE San Diego, a local dance company that, like the Voices of Our City Choir, has a socially conscious mission. The TranscenDANCE Web site, https://tdarts.org, describes it as “a nationally-recognized creative youth development organization that works with youth in under-resourced San Diego communities. Our programs change the trajectory of students’​ lives by building resilience, confidence, and creativity and by instilling life-changing skills such as leadership, collaboration, and community engagement.” For the most part TranscenDANCE performed to recorded music, including the intriguing choice of The Beatles’ 1968 record “Blackbird” – a welcome respite from all the aggressively loud blues, funk and soul they were otherwise performing to – but during “Give a Little Kindness” they actually danced “live” to the Voices of Our City choir and band. They are an all-female troupe (at least the ones that danced on November 3) and they are quite lithe and did some spectacular lifts. The performance drew a quite large crowd – my husband Charles and I arrived early and, when we found the concert wasn’t scheduled to start until 2:30 (the start time we’d been given was 2), we did a walk around the neighborhood before we returned. When we got back the place was very crowded even though it was still half an hour before the scheduled start time. I liked the fact that the event drew so well and I liked just about everything except the interminable patting-yourselves-on-the-back speeches that generally get made on occasions like this. I especially liked Natalie Bradley, a young woman who’s been appointed the choir’s music program manager, who wore a flowing flannel garment below her waist (above it was a standard-issue Voices of Our City Choir black T-shirt) that only on closer inspection turned out to be a pair of loose-fitting trousers rather than a dress. She also sang a quite impressive solo on one of the Voices’ songs. Charles and I had a nice afternoon, though fortunately I had thought to bring along my sweat jacket; it started to get chilly out on that largely exposed patio and by the time the event wrapped up at shortly after 4 p.m. (an hour later in the evening due to the morning time change) I needed my jacket on and zipped.