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Penn State College of Arts and Architecture
Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State

Event Slides Per Node 1415

  • Two images of choir members singing and dancing bookend the words Soweto Gospel Choir.
  • In an image collage, women dressed in bold and colorful traditional African celebratory clothing clap, sing, and smile.
  • One part of image collage shows a group a group of women standing and raising their right fists in the air, while another photo shows a woman clapping and smiling.

Soweto Gospel Choir
Hope: It's Been a Long Time Coming

10:00 am Tuesday, November 29, 2022
60 minutes
Eisenhower Auditorium

Hailing from Soweto, birthplace of the South African democratic movement’s struggle for freedom, Soweto Gospel Choir inspires audiences around the world with its powerful blend of African gospel, freedom songs, U.S. civil rights music, and international classics. Hope: It’s Been a Long Time Coming celebrates South African and American artists associated with the struggle for civil rights and social justice. 

Choir members represent churches in and around Soweto, a township of Johannesburg known as the heart of South Africa’s battle against apartheid. During the June 1976 Soweto Uprising, Black school children protested the enforced teaching of the Afrikaans language in their schools. The choir has won numerous awards, including two Grammys, and founded a foundation for AIDS orphans.

Suggested Grades: 
Pre-K through twelve
Key Learning Areas: 
Global competency; oral histories; language and literacy
PA Academic Standards: 
Arts and humanities; English language arts; social studies; civics and government
Social Justice Standards: 
Identity, diversity, justice, action


sponsors
Designer’s Studio
Geisinger
Lam and Lina Hood
Kish Bank
Susan and Lewis Steinberg

support provided by
McQuaide Blasko Endowment

Artist Websites:
Soweto Gospel Choir

Watch a preview of Soweto Gospel Choir on YouTube.