American Christmas Gospel in the Viennese Karlskirche
What would the Advent season be without music? Until Christmas there is still the possibility to enjoy a special listening pleasure. In the Karlskirche, gospel music is performed that is otherwise only celebrated in masses in the USA. The feeling of Harlem, St. Louis and Jersey fascinates every spectator and is a musical feast for the ears, which, in addition to the smell of gingerbread and the pleasure of punch, creates a Christmas mood of a special kind.
Gospel music is - in the broadest sense - church music of African-American congregations that are characterized by jazz and blues influences. / Picture: © The Christmas Gospel 2018
The selected voices of the Christmas Gospel singers will present songs of unattainable intensity and quality, invite you to sing and swing along and will make the venerable church house tremble! Classics like "Oh Happy Day", "Amazing Grace" and "When the Saints" will be part of it.
On several evenings there is the possibility to experience Advent Gospel in the Karlskirche Vienna with the most famous songs from the repertoire of "The Christmas Gospel".
The roots of the so-called black gospels and spirituals go back to the beginning of the 18th century. The term was first used in 1874 by Philipp P. Bliss, under "Gospel Song", for the collection of his compositions for collective singing at religious gatherings: "Gospel Songs, A Choice Collection Of Hymns And Tunes". In America at that time, the African slaves developed their first English hymns in the foreign - and still unknown - new country.
Gospel or gospel music is - in the broadest sense - church music of Afro-American communities, which are characterized by jazz and blues influences. The word "gospel" itself means gospel, good news and is derived from the Old English gōdspel, gōd = good and spel = narrative/ news.
Known in its present form, the term gospel was most strongly influenced at the beginning of the 1930s, as the name of the religious songs of the Afro-American churches in North America - quasi a continuation of the "Negro Spirituals" with strong inclusion of the jazz and blues elements already mentioned.
The Gospel Singers of "The Christmas Gospel"
After 20 years of touring the USA, the dream of bringing together some of the best American gospel singers as a group to share their spiritual fire with their brothers and sisters in Europe was born in their own church in Harlem.
THE CHRISTMAS GOSPEL
Until December 22nd 2018
Karlskirche
1040 Vienna