Mosaic Harmony in Full Swing

Mosaic Harmony’s former pianist, Lance Jackson, sure left a terrific song! The Oakton-based inspirational choir singers belted out “Lord, You Bring Me Joy” on Sunday as if they were the Walter Hawkins Singers or another gospel super group. After leading the chorus in “One More Time,” Director David North used the “Joy” song to stir the crowd at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax in Oakton.

            The choir scaled back its fund-raising concerts from two to one this year, and the excitement of two or more concerts was compacted into one for the fortunate audience of several hundred.

            Next, Mosaic Harmony moved into a spiritual, “Done Made My Vow” with Victoria Robinson as soloist, before Patrick Lundy’s “Determined to Go On” and Donald Lawrence and Andrae Crouch’s “Bless Me,” which featured soloist Misti Mukherjee.

            Then North brought back one of his previous works, “Help Me Make Peace,” a rollicking song in keeping with the theme of the chorus’ goal “to change the world one song at a time.”

            As in all of his concerts, North urged the audience to get up, and clap and sing along. He included three sing-alongs, though several of the pieces were unfamiliar and were in a difficult pitch for the audience.

            But the crowd was thrilled with a Soweto version of “Khumbaya,” (Not your church picnic version, North said) and its own version of “Siyahama.”

Then Nikki Barnett and North outdid their previous efforts with North’s inspirational song, “One Humankind.” Kala Payne led the chorus in Donnie McClurkin’s bouncy “I See a World” and the chorus closed with “Make Us One,” fanning out into the audience to hold hands, as it does in all of its concerts.

Funded in part by the Arts Council of Fairfax County, the chorus next appears June 14 at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Sterling and on June 23 at the Mt. Zion United Methodist Church in Hamilton. North is holding a miniworkshop and concert on gospel music at the Washington Plaza Baptist Church in Reston on May 18. Details at www.mosaicharmony.org.