In the fall semester of the 1977 academic year at Boston College, a small group of black students, feeling the need to be closely connected in their new academic environment, congregated to encourage and support one another by singing the songs of their religious tradition and to give praise to almighty God. The students chose the name Imani, the Swahili word for faith, as the name for their group. In choosing the name Imani for their group, the students were recalling the lyrics of one of the great hymns of the black religious experience: "we've come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord, trusting in His holy word, He's never failed us yet." The repertoire of the group is reflective of this great faith tradition in that it includes the breadth of musical expression in the black worship experience, i.e., spirituals, traditional gospel, contemporary gospel, as well as music of the European tradition.

In the fall of 1982, Prof. Hubert E. Walters was appointed as lecturer in African & African Diaspora Studies and Music at Boston College, and was asked to be the musical director for the Voices of Imani. Professor Walters served as musical director until the spring of 2010, when he handed the torch to Chauncey McGlathery. Read more about Prof. Walters and Voices of Imani in this article from the Boston College Chronicle

Voices of Imani is a student-based organization that is connected to the African & African Diaspora Studies Program as a laboratory for the courses taught by Mr. McGlathery. Membership in the organization is open to the entire student population at the college and the group is quite diverse in it make-up. For the past several years the group has toured various parts of the country during the spring break period. In recent years they have visited Tennessee, Florida, Texas, California, Washington, D.C., Virinia, and Atlanta, Georgia.

Chauncey McGlathery, Voices of Imani Director

Chauncey has been around the world twice but the best of what he imagines has yet to manifest.  Entering his fifth decade as a musical director, Chauncey is looking forward to recording and producing tracks for choirs and orchestras in every genre from jazz to hip hop.  As he begins work on his latest manifesto, Music for the Stage, Chauncey continues to write plays and musicals designed to move each audience from spiritual unction to social action.  His new play is entitled, The Irony of a Negro Policeman, exposing the genius behind the groundbreaking masterpiece of the same title-- jean Michel Basquiat.

Alexi Paraschos

Influenced by the music of Elvis Presley and Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity from an early age, this Boston-area native began playing the guitar at age seven. Having grown up singing his whole life, but being moved by the more soulful music of Motown, he fell in love with gospel music at the age of fourteen. Listening to gospel music, he taught himself to play the piano at age sixteen and began composing solo and choral pieces on the piano around this time.

At age 18, Alexi enrolled at Tufts University and became involved in the Boston gospel music scene, most notably with the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College. Through Kuumba, a choir that strives to always leave a space better than they found it, he gained experience performing, directing, composing, and arranging pieces in the gospel, spiritual, and neo-spiritual genres.

Through these experiences, he has had the privilege of performing for musical artists such as Herbie Hancock, Yo-Yo Ma, and Joshua Redman; actors like Dan Aykroyd, Selma Hayek, and Laurence Fishburne; as well as politicians and activists including Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Cornel West, John Kerry, the late senator Ted Kennedy, and current Vice President, Joe Biden.

He is currently a singer/songwriter gigging in and around the Boston area, a teaching artist at Fenway High School through the Bubs Foundation, and the Assistant Director of the Boston College choir, Voices of Imani.

For more information on the Voices of Imani, please visit their website at www.voicesofimani.com