First Baptist Trussville choir among three Alabama churches that performed at Carnegie Hall

Choirs from Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Vestavia; Hunter Street Baptist Church, Hoover; and FBC Trussville join David Phelps and the Voices of Mobile at Carnegie Hall.

The choir of First Baptist Church Trussville was one of three choirs from Alabama churches to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York last week. The trip to New York for the performance was organized by Michael Adler, music minister at Shades Mountain Baptist Church in Birmingham.

“The event so far exceeded our expectations,” Adler said. “The audience was so responsive. They were from all over the world. The choir rose to the occasion and exceeded our expectations. It was a lifetime experience.”

Adler approached his friend Joe Estes, Minister of Music and Worship at FBC Trussville, and Frank Jones, Assistant Adult Choir at Director Hunter Street Baptist, in early 2017 about bringing their choirs to New York City. The number of people from the three churches that took part in the trip was over 300, with 199 singers and more than 30 in the orchestra during the show.

After much preparation and music selection, the performance became a reality. This was not the first trip to New York for Jones.

“I’ve been in New York before,” he said. “For a lot of folks, it was their first trip. The city is beautiful the first time you see it. I mean, you can’t believe it. But I think, as a musician, to be able to perform on one of the world’s greatest stages, probably one of the most familiar performance venues in the world perhaps – to be able to perform not just music but for us to profess our faith in Christ was something that I will never, ever forget in my life.”

The churches were accompanied by others at Carnegie Hall that night. Estes said that David Phelps, a Grammy award-winning Christian vocalist, joined them at Carnegie Hall where he had several solo performances but also sang four of his own songs with the choirs and instrumentalists. The music was a diverse set of choral classics along with contemporary and hymn arrangements. The Voices of Mobile was also involved in the program, Estes added.

“There was quite a variety in what we did,” he said. “We even did an arrangement of a classic oratorio piece. So a lot of variety, which was good because at Carnegie Hall you open the doors and folks come in and you don’t know where they’re from. They literally are from all over the country.”

Tickets had to be purchased for most people who attended the concert. But Jones said that there were some who got in for free when a portion of the purchased tickets were handed out to people in the city.

“There was a great number of tickets that were sold,” Jones said. “But as part of our package that we purchased for the trip, a certain amount of that money went to provide free tickets for people in the New York Area. I know there were members of some of our Southern Baptist church plants, new churches up there, we handed out tickets to people on the street – in restaurants, on the streets, taxis, bellhops – just people that they ran into on the streets. They said ‘We’re doing this concert. Would you like to come? It’s free.’”

On the following day on Sunday, the three churches split up and went to other churches in New York City to spend time with friends and hold worship services. Estes remarked that the day before was a special moment for him to be able to lead in such a place as Carnegie Hall that has become a historically significant aspect for the famed city.

“That was quite a moment to be able to direct there at Carnegie Hall where the who’s who of musicians throughout the last 120 years have performed,” he said.