We Are Different – Pure-N-Heart

Pure-N-Heart
We Are Different
Music2ChangeU Records 2008 (released Spring 2009)
www.purenheartkids.com

Alphaeus and Alexias Anderson know a thing or two about putting together a quality children’s choir. On the CD We Are Different, the couple’s Pure-N-Heart choir is well instructed.

To be truthful, though, Pure-N-Heart is more than a children’s choir. It is a positive youth program wrapped in a music ministry. Comprised of more than 200 elementary school-aged youth from Georgia and North and South Carolina, Pure-N-Heart is dedicated to walking on Straight Street. Choir members sing and praise instead of becoming “part of the hip hop culture,” as one young member put it.

What most impressed me about Pure-N-Heart is how well this enormous group of young people blend well together and not blow out their voices by singing too loud or too hard. True, tracks such as “Keeps Liftin’ Me Higher” resonate with earth-shattering joy usually reserved for the last day of school before summer vacation, but it’s managed volume. This is testimony to the Andersons’ direction.

The songs – composed and arranged by Alphaeus – are ideally suited for a children’s chorus. Lyrics are cyclical, the music easy to learn and the songs fun to sing, as in the case of “Hallelujah, Praise His Name,” where children imitate animals praising the Lord, in the fashion of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” – but what, no cat?!

Several members of all ages take turns soloing, with Deshante and Jordan Thurman receiving the highest decibel, and well deserved, praise from the choristers on their performance.

My late wife was an elementary and high school choir director on Chicago’s west side. She had mighty groups that won state music competitions. Her words resonated in my ears while I listened to this CD. Are the children enunciating? Are they singing from their diaphragm? Are they together? Disciplined? The answer to all is yes.

I should think Pure-N-Heart’s We Are Different has Stellar nomination potential.

Four of Five Stars