SIU’s Concert Choir and Choral Union perform during the “Peace I Leave With You: Music of Faith and Solidarity” concert at Shryock Auditorium in November 2025. (Photo by Erasmus Tornye)
April 07, 2026
SIU Choral Union, Concert Choir to help audiences envision a ‘Beautiful City’
CARBONDALE, Ill. — The Southern Illinois University Carbondale Choral Union and Concert Choir will showcase their combined talents when drawing upon spirituals and gospel music during a free, public concert on April 21 in Shryock Auditorium.
The 7 p.m. “Beautiful City” performance will explore the use of music “as an act of prayer, witness and communal expression, drawing on the enduring traditions of African American spirituals and gospel music,” said Emerson Eads, assistant professor and director of choral studies in the SIU School of Music.
The choral union and concert choir features more than 80 singers. They will be joined by 30 Carterville High School students under the direction Carlyn Zimmerman, an SIU Carbondale alumna and Carterville High School choral director. The SIU Choral Union is made up of SIU students and community members from across the region. The group gives one performance each semester and rehearses once a week. Jiyeon Lee, an assistant professor of practice in the School of Music, is the pianist.
The performance is expected to take about one hour with no intermission.
The works are “born from histories of suffering yet sustained by faith and resilience” that transformed “individual longing into one collective voice,” Eads said.
Program features spiritual, gospel arrangements
The program will include Robert Ray’s 35-minute Gospel Mass, alongside a selection of spirituals and gospel arrangements, Eads said. SIU Carbondale student soloists Israeli Jones and Eli Rafe will be joined by a jazz ensemble of SIU alumni Keith Javors on piano; Carbondale Middle School band director Shadi Frick on bass, and Lucas Barger, an SIU graduate student in music on percussion.
The program features:
- “Hear My Prayer” by Moses Hogan.
- “Praise His Holy Name” by Keith Hampton.
- Gospel Mass” by Robert Ray.
- “Come And Go To That Land,” a spiritual arrangement by Brandon Boyd.
- “We Shall Walk Through the Valley in Peace,” a spiritual arrangement by Hogan.
Musical ideas come alive
Eads came to SIU Carbondale in fall 2025 and said he feels “incredibly fortunate to be here in Southern Illinois.” It was during one of his near daily bicycle bike rides near Murphysboro Lake that the musical idea for this program began to take shape, he said.
“On one of those rides, I found myself humming a line from a spiritual, ‘O, what a beautiful city,’ That phrase just stayed with me. I was looking out over the landscape, feeling the warmth of the sun — even in December — and it struck me in a very real, immediate way. This is a beautiful place.”
Yet, Eads said, at the same time, tension also exists, “where many people are struggling, where there’s division, where basic needs like healthcare and stability aren’t guaranteed. So, the title, ‘Beautiful City,’ became something more than just a description. It became a kind of aspiration — a vision of what our community, and our world, could be.”