'Gospel Voices of OC' to Celebrate Freedom, Juneteenth and Black History

Kristina M. Garcia
Jun 13, 2025
5 min read

The production by Arts & Learning Conservatory at Musco Center for the Arts is one of several events acknowledging our newest national holiday.

This year's performance of “Gospel Voices of OC” is primarily made up of youth with about 75 performers, and more than 85% being from Orange County. Photo courtesy of Arts & Learning Conservatory

As Juneteenth approaches, so does an opportunity to celebrate freedom and commemorate Black history. In Orange County, the youth are taking center stage in a production that spans the decades and enriches the community with history that has often gone overlooked and undocumented in history textbooks.

The nonprofit Arts & Learning Conservatory will be performing its fourth annual “Gospel Voices of OC” on June 22 at Chapman University’s Musco Center for the Arts. The performance will focus on youth voices and arts, connecting with Black history and leading up to the present day, with a special nod to Juneteenth.

With about five to six months to prepare, “Gospel Voices of OC” will feature about 75 performers, with participants as young as 12 years old performing in the production.

“That's why I call it ‘Gospel Voices’ because you're going to hear the spirituals and gospel music, but the ‘voices’ part is all the different voicings of different art forms (showing that the Black community is) involved in everything,” said Debora Wondercheck, founder of the nonprofit ALC and producer of “Gospel Voices of OC.”

The program will be filled with different styles of music such as choral, classical, jazz, spirituals and gospel. It will also feature a variation of arts like theater, dance, band, spoken word – all blending together to tell a cohesive history of Black history, as well as June 19, 1865, which is acknowledged today as Juneteenth.

The show also uses acting, dance, spoken word and pictures to narrate history. Photo courtesy of Arts & Learning Conservatory

Juneteenth celebrates freedom as the last enslaved African Americans in the United States were finally freed by Union troops in Galveston Bay and across Texas.

“Gospel Voices of OC” started in 2020 after the civil unrest and racialization following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police. As hate crimes and racism were on a rise, Wondercheck experienced the hate crimes that plagued Orange County and the rest of the nation.

Wondercheck felt something needed to done to help bridge the gaps in the community and “stop the nonsense or at least bring people together” to recognize “we might be different, but we’re no different than anyone else,” she said.

“I thought the arts would be a way to bridge the community and see Black excellence through singing, through acting, through dance, through instrumental music such as classical music with African American musicians, ballet with African American ballet dancers on pointe,” the founder said.

She added, “All the things that most people don't typically see and experience, I wanted to bring that to the county and do it in a way that was inspirational and celebratory.”

The first year’s theme was “History Through Harmony” where they combined arts and media arts to give the audience a sense of connection to the individuals being described on stage. Then the show took the audience to church, calling back to the heart of Black history in the United States. This is the inspiration behind the program’s name, “Gospel Voices of OC.”

“(Church) was the one place, even hundreds of years ago, that (the Black community) could have solace, that we could unify, we could come together, we could build each other up, be inspirational toward one another and have the hope through prayer and our faith in God that our situation would change eventually, would have to change,” Wondercheck said.

Celebrating women has been an ongoing theme of “Gospel Voices of OC” performances. From the 2024 celebration, PHOTO 1: Guitarist Felicia Collins was a guest soloist who performed a tribute to Rosetta Tharpe. PHOTO 2: Jazz organist Shirley Scott in the background. PHOTO 3: Singer and actor Eartha Kitt (in the background). PHOTO 4: Arts & Learning Conservatory executive director Deborah Wondercheck. Photos courtesy of Arts & Learning Conservatory

Every year, “Gospel Voices of OC” features a tribute to icons in Black history, with this year’s picks being singer and pianist Nina Simone, activist Sojourner Truth, pianist and composer Duke Ellington, and more.

Wondercheck picks her tributes based on the impact the person made on history, as well as their ties with the church. Simone is known today as a musical icon, but she was also a civil rights advocate and was deeply involved in church as her mother was a Methodist minister and her father a preacher.

Simone’s community rallied together to pay for her to go to Juilliard music school. She was a phenomenal classically trained pianist and eventually auditioned for the Curtis Institute of Music, but Simone was ultimately turned away. Simone said Curtis denied her due to the color of her skin, which is also a piece described in this year’s “Gospel Voices of OC.”

“I'm trying to also make sure that I honor women because we hear a lot about African American men but not a lot about who the women were during the different eras and the impacts that they've made,” the producer said.

Much like Simone, Wondercheck’s mother had a similar experience that eventually impacted the world of music.

Coming from a family of seven, Wondercheck said her mother wanted all of her siblings to play musical instruments. When Wondercheck’s mother was a child growing up in the ‘40s, she was denied the opportunity to play due to systemic issues that were happening during her era.

Like Simone, this experience had its own impact on future youth. Wondercheck became a music educator and eventually founded the Arts & Learning Conservatory to spread the power of music among youth.

“The Arts & Learning Conservatory is here to make sure that our children have exposure because they could be the next Duke Ellington or the next Nina Simone, you know, they need that opportunity,” Wondercheck said.

All proceeds will go directly toward funds that support scholarships for children, serving around 4,000 students annually, amid federal government and budget cuts against the education system that are conceivably taking these opportunities away from children.

“Every year, it's a different form of the arts. It's a different artist that we're honoring. There's so much rich history that I can't even tell it in one performance. So every year people come back, they're going to see something different – something unusual, unique and beautiful,” Wondercheck said.