Raising their voice in gratitude: Messiah Men’s choir
Go Deeper.
Create an account or log in to save stories.
Like this?
Thanks for liking this story! We have added it to a list of your favorite stories.
Some radio stories are fine to simply read on the web - you're not missing too much by skipping out on the audio.
This is not one of those stories.
[image]
Messiah's Men
Turn Up Your Support
MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all.
Image courtesy of the artists
From the first notes of harmonizing by Messiah's Men, Dan Olson's portrait of the Liberian men's choir had me hooked. Their stories are filled with tragedy (all of them having lost family to the Liberian civil war) and yet their music is filled with joy. Olson's explains it well:
Singing is their therapy -- a way to cope with the memory of smelling death, tasting death, being close to dead.
They tell audiences that the singers' survival stories prove there is always hope in desperate times, says choir member Trokon Guar.
"You'll get to see the positive-ness of hope, and the transformation it has brought into our lives," he said.
But again, don't just be satisfied with reading the script - give it a listen:
You can visit Messiah's Men's website here.
