Image credit: Dr. Marlena Smalls & The Hallelujah Singers Facebook page

On Monday, Oct. 24 at 7:30 p.m., Presbyterian College will host the ensemble, “The Hallelujah Singers,” led by Dr. Marlena Smalls in Edmunds Hall. The ensemble will capture South Carolina Sea Island culture as it weaves in Gullah and West African material.

The Hallelujah Singers were organized to preserve melodies and storytelling that is unique to the South Carolina Sea Islands. The group is a national art provider offering cultural enrichment through preserving and celebrating the heritage of the Gullah culture with language and traditions indelibly linked to West African heritage.

Performances weaving music and narration present a dramatization of unique personages, rituals and ceremonial dimension which played an important part in shaping the Gullah culture and its influence on the broad musical traditions.

The Hallelujah Singers travel extensively as Gullah ambassadors teaching and entertaining in schools, auditoriums, and festivals in their Fa Da Chillum Outreach Program. They have performed for the U.S. Congress, the South Carolina legislature, in Chicago’s Ravinia festivals, the Kennedy Center, the Spoleto Festival, and the G-8 Summit.

The group has been designated a Local Legacy of South Carolina by the U.S. Library of Congress as a part of the library’s Bicentennial Celebration. Other awards include the South Carolina Folk Heritage Advocacy Award, the Alpha Kappa Community Service Award, the Rockford, Ill. Mayor’s Award, the Elizabeth O’Neill Verner award, and were named as the South Carolina Ambassadors of the year in 1998.

Smalls founded The Hallelujah Singers in 1990 by to preserve the Gullah culture of the SC Sea Islands. She also founded the Gullah Festival in 1985 in Beaufort, S.C., and today the annual Memorial Day event attracts more than 20,000 visitors.

Smalls began singing at the age of 11 in Ohio and studied at Central State University. She is a sacred music vocalist, also singing gospel, contemporary, jazz, and blues. Her programs for schools, reunion and meeting groups incorporate lecture, music, and Gullah storytelling.

Inducted into the South Carolina Black Hall of Fame in 2004, Smalls has performed for the queen for the Queen of England and many U.S. and international dignitaries. She has worked with film producer Joel Silver and Academy Award winners Tom Hanks, Demi Moore, and Glenn Close. In addition to many productions for PBS, SCETV, and GPTC, she is best known to international audiences as “Bubba’s” mom in the Academy Award winning motion picture, “Forrest Gump.”

Presbyterian College is located on a striking 240-acre campus in Clinton, between Columbia and Greenville, S.C. Offering challenging academics and a culture of honor, ethics, and service that prepares students to be leaders in communities, PC offers its students the benefit of engaging with an exceptional faculty who take individual interest in their students’ well-being, both personally and in the classroom. The Presbyterian College School of Pharmacy opened in 2010, and is dedicated to the ideals of leadership, honor to the profession, and service to the community. For more information about Presbyterian College, visit www.presby.edu.