Monday Dec. 7

 One our little sticky points with gospel music is that  that we have less and less truck with religion - any of 'em - the older we get. Raised Catholic, turned agnostic in college, remained that way. But agnostic doesn't mean atheistic, so that means we entertain the belief that maybe there's a God and afterlife - we just sorta don't think so. But we do like good gospel music. Just one of the contradictions we live with. On Monday Dec. 7, the Berklee Performance Center has four groups in one under the rubric of "Bringing Nations Together With Gospel," a program directed by Berklee associate professor Dennis Montgomery III. The big band will be provided by Berklee's 50-plus-member Reverence Gospel Ensemble, The Reverence Gospel Ensemble was started at Berklee in 1981 and, under the leadership of Montgomery. He is a renowned gospel organist who has performed with Shirley Caesar, James Cleveland, Bobby Jones, John P. Kee, and many others. He recorded the album "Come and Have Church with Me," and produced "It's Me, Vol. 1," featuring Sheldon Wilson.
Gospel's appeal is wide-ranging and crosses ethnic and musical genre lines. Over the years, the Berklee group has included students from Japan, Greece, Israel, France, Lebanon, Taiwan, Australia, Canada, the U.S., and many European and Scandinavian nations. Yes, it's not required you be a true believer to sing gospel. A Jewish woman friend is in a local gospel group and gets immense pleasure out of singing about Lord Jesus. She's quite ok with it. In fact, she loves it. The Berklee choir also counted as members alumnae Paula Cole '90, Susan Tedeschi '91, and Lalah Hathaway '94, when they were students.
Also on this bill: small gospel groups, Women of Virtue, Overjoyed, and Men of Valor. The concert will include gospel standards and Montgomery originals.The show starts 8:15 p.m. and tickets are $10. 

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