Events

Lenten gospel concert planned for February 28

Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology will present a Lenten gospel concert on Tuesday, February 28, at 7 p.m. Central in the St. Thomas Aquinas Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.

Vocalist Veronica Downs-Dorsey will be accompanied by Rawn Harbor on the piano. Downs-Dorsey worked professionally as a music educator in the Orleans Parish school system for 40 years, located in New Orleans, LA, including 30 years at McDonogh 35 Senior High School.

She directed the school choir that is recognized as the first high school gospel choir to form in the city of New Orleans and the first high school gospel choir to perform at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. The choir has received numerous awards, including Offbeat Magazine’s Best of the Beat Award for best gospel group on four occasions.

She served for many years as the choir director at St. Monica Catholic Church and is a former director of the New Orleans Gospel Soul Children. She currently leads the Voices of Peter Claver, the main gospel choir of St. Peter Claver Catholic Church, and serves as a director of the Archdiocese of New Orleans Mass Gospel Choir.

She is also the principal pianist for The New Orleans Black Chorale and a member of Tyrone Foster and the Arc Singers, the Davell Crawford Singers, and the New Orleans Chapter of the Gospel Music Workshop of America Inc.

Rawn Harbor studied at Furman University, Howard University, the Catholic University of America, the Catholic Theological Union at Georgetown University and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, where he earned his master’s in theological studies in 2001.

He was adjunct faculty member and director of liturgy and music at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, and adjunct faculty and director of the gospel choir at the University of San Francisco. He has taught and served as coordinator of liturgy for the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in New Orleans.

Since 1974, Harbor has traveled the country as a liturgist, musician and lecturer. He collaborated with ValLimar and Frank Jansen, and Val Parker, on the two-volume collection, Psalms from the Soul, the first psalmody collection designed for those who love gospel music. He currently lives in the Bay Area of California.

Parking is available in the Guest House and student parking lots. For more information, contact Mary Jeanne Schumacher during business hours at 812-357-6501. For updates on the day of the performance, call 812-357-6611.