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| Sunday, May 22, 2005 12:02 AM CDT | () comments

Dawn Feddersen

Many events encourage the audience to stay in their seats and keep quiet.

But during the 10th annual Quad-City Gospel Music Festival on Saturday night at the Capitol Theater in downtown Davenport, the audience was singing and dancing right along with the performers on stage.

"The crowd is very energetic. They really seem to be enjoying it," said Valerie Davis, president and founder of the Gospel Music Festival.

Sala Williams, a sophomore at Rock Island High School and a performer with the Community Mass Choir, explained the importance of audience participation in gospel music.

"Not everybody wants to go to church. But if people know they're going to sing and dance and have a good time, then it gives them more reason to come," she said.

Davis, like many people at the event, grew up singing in the church choir. So as an adult, she wanted to encourage the awareness, visibility, and recognition of gospel music. "I feel I need to spread the Gospel wherever I go," she said.

The artists who performed help further Davis' vision in a variety of ways.

That includes from New Direction, a hip-hop choral ensemble, to K&K Mime

Ministry, which silently interpret contemporary gospel music with dramatic gestures and animated facial expressions. And the emcee was Dr. Bobby Jones, best known for Bobby Jones Gospel, the first and only nationally syndicated black gospel television show.

All of the performers, according to Davis, provide religious expression through music and place an emphasis on being a source of positive entertainment.

James McNeill, who performed for the third time with the Community Mass Choir on Saturday night, explained his reasons for being involved. "I'm doing a good thing for my church. I love to sing. I love music, period," he said.

It is that type of love for music which the Gospel Music Festival also strives to encourage, Davis said.

Proceeds from this and other events go to help underserved area youth, in the seventh to 12th grades, who are unable to afford musical education. This assistance can include lessons, or even the instrument, itself.

"Music has always been a love for me," Davis said. "I have 10 brothers and four sisters and we all grew up musically inclined in one way or another. I wouldn't want any kid to miss out on that."

For more information on the assistance program, contact Davis at (563) 324-4208.

The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2245 or newsroom@qctimes.com.