Gospel’s got a special place in the soul of Europeans, who, generally speaking, hear it not as a call to praise the Lord but as the exotic voice of religion in America, a foreign, typically ethnic form of expression. For the French in particular, “Oh, Happy Day” is shorthand for religious life in America the way that for Americans “La vie en rose” is shorthand for romance in Paris. Two wonderful clichés.
Therefore it isn’t unusual for American groups performing Gospel in Paris. Yesterday I went to hear “Oh, Happy Day” and a dozen other African-American sacred songs at the American Church in Paris, performed by the Charleston Symphony Orchestra Gospel Choir.
Among the standing-room-only crowd there were a few of amen corners and raised hands, invariably Americans, along with an international mix of divinely beaming faces, but most simply let their appreciation be shown by thunderous applause and exit donations (entrance was free).
This was the third and final concert in Europe for the all-volunteer choir, under the direction of Sandra S. Barnhart, after performances at Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London and Bath Abbey in Bath.
The American Church in Paris is an interdenominational Protestant Christian church that claims to be the first American church established on foreign soil. Its first sanctuary was established in 1857, but its main period of growth came after WWI with the presence of American soldiers in France followed by the American tourist boom of the 1920s. The present church at 67 quai d’Orsay dates from 1929. It is home to two bilingual elementary schools, a variety of “twelve step” recovery groups, basketball leagues, other church and community-based services, and a free concert series.
