For St. Benedict the African parishioner Susan Rashard, the March 19 concert offered by the Spelman College Glee Club was a chance to enjoy and appreciate choral music in her church once again.

“I’m so happy to be here,” Rashard said during the intermission of the two-hour concert in the church, 340 W. 66th St. “It makes me anxious to get our own choir back.”

The concert was the second in the Archdiocese of Chicago in two days for the glee club, which was undertaking its first spring tour since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The club also performed at Sacred Heart Church of Divine Mercy Parish in Winnetka on March 18.

St. Benedict the African pastor Father David Jones said he invited the glee club and its director Kevin Johnson after Johnson composed a Mass for the parish several years ago.

“He composed the Mass of St. Benedict for us,” Jones said, “and he brought some members of the glee club when he came to introduce it to us. So when I heard they were going to do a spring tour this year, I said, you know where your home is.”

While Spelman, a historically Black women’s college, is non-denominational, Johnson is also music minister at Lyke House, the Catholic center for the Atlanta University Center Consortium.

The glee club performed a variety of music, from “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and Nina Simone’s “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” to Johnson’s arrangement of “Children Go Where I Send Thee.”

They also performed Johnson’s arrangement of “Glory to God,” though he acknowledged that the prayer would not normally be said during Lent, and a setting of “Ave Maria” that members of the glee club who traveled with Lyke House performed in Rome last year.

The Spelman Glee Club’s mission is to “inspire and amaze.” Jones said that when they performed in his predominantly Black parish, they offered a sense of hope to parishioners as well.

“They love the music, and they love the sense of how when you sing, you pray twice,” Jones said. “And to see and hear these young Black women performing so beautifully, and to have it in the church, there’s a sense of hope. And it makes sense to them.”

The concert also provided hope to Asa Kay Steward, 13, who came with her father and her sister. Asa Kay, a student in Kenwood Academy’s middle school Academic Center, is exploring colleges and is very interested in Spelman. She hoped for a chance to speak with some of the glee club members after the concert.

“I like that it’s all-girls,” she explained. “And its history.”

Perhaps she was channeling Lena McLin, a musician, pastor and longtime teacher at Kenwood Academy, as well as a graduate of Spelman College. Proceeds from free-will offerings at both concerts in the Archdiocese of Chicago are earmarked to start a four-year scholarship in McLin’s name for a young woman to study music at Spelman.