32 SOMERVILLE MAGAZINE
Giving Thanks and Praise:
Introducing the Aseda Gospel Choir
The Aseda Gospel Choir is the first choir created by and for African and Caribbean students at Oxford. Here Aseda’s Musical Director Danielle Welbeck (2019, Music) tells us how the choir has not only lifted hearts but empowered its members with new confidence and unity.
I
always knew that studying Music at Oxford would be challenging – but knowing something and feeling it on a daily basis are two different things. I can’t deny that it’s been hard at times. My Prelims course centred around formalist and notated musical knowledge, with not much space for the aural skills I had developed during a lifetime of music in the church. There were many times when I was left asking myself whether I belonged here. These trends also exist in the choral and chapel music that form part of the fabric of life at Oxford. Most colleges have their own denominational choirs that sing choral works
All photos this page by Maciek Tomiczek
and some choirs even reserve a certain number of undergraduate spaces for choral and organ scholars. These choirs are auditioned, and participation requires a fairly high level of notation-centred musical literacy, making them inaccessible to anyone whose musical training happened away from scores and sheet music. By contrast, the black sacred music that I grew up with is an aural tradition. After hearing this music weekly in church, in our parents’ cars as they drive, or on Saturday mornings when we’re being woken up to clean, the musical conventions of this genre become internalised. Suddenly, without consciously trying, we’re
