The KD and Dr Legg Gospel Music Experience: Festival of Voices 2016

A week long intensive music performance, applied theory and cultural studies series of workshops, the KD and Dr Legg Gospel Experience takes 10 new compositions (Legg/Dently) and re works them from 3 voices to four; re arranges the instrumentation to suit a new contemporary ensemble; combining live performance with synced additional tracks; and recontextualising the music and performance traditions of the original African American gospel church into an Australian, non-religious-specific performance context. the concert was broadcast as a live stream into the US, and into the context where the music was originally written and recorded by Legg and Dently. The contrast between the original and Australian performances is marked, and in part forms the basis of the Legg/Philpott/Blacklow book chapter "Singing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land: An examination of the nexus between the Southern Gospel Choir and the city of Hobart, Tasmania", as part of the in-press Routledge book "This Is My City". The impact of this performance and workshop has three significant components; the effectiveness of the musical performance and it's effect on the Australian performers; the effect on and engagement with the American audience; and the effect and engagement with the American/Australian composers and arrangers. The on-line audience was measured at 25,000 individual hits in the US region, and online, real-time responses from all audiences were significant, measurable and archived. Most importantly, the performance of the Australian ensemble achieved a recognizable authenticity and effect in presentation/performance, acknowledged by US producer Myron Butler, and reported on national news cycles by SBS and ABC.