SATB GOSPEL — Connecticut ACDA

The 2024-2025 season marks 30 years with the Reverend Lisa Clayton at the helm of the University of Connecticut’s Voices of Freedom Choir. In 2023, Rev. Clayton’s musical life story was recorded in Yale University’s Oral History of American Music; her story is “preserved into perpetuity” and available to be studied for generations of scholars. She is a recording artist, composer, workshop clinician, and ordained preacher in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. Lisa Clayton was selected in August of 2022 as one of 60 Outstanding Alumni of the School of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut. In September of 2022, she was nominated as the Outstanding African American Faculty member for the school of Fine Arts as well. Lisa served as the first Connectional Coordinator of Music (Minister of Music) for the one million membered Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church from 2014-2018 and currently serves on the National Music Team representing the East Coast.

She serves as the Minister in Residence and Minister of Music at Phillips Metropolitan CME Church in Hartford, CT. She has also served as an Adjunct Professor for over twenty years at both the Hartford Seminary (now the Hartford International University for Religion and Peace) and the University of Connecticut, where she directs the UConn Voices of Freedom Gospel Choir. She is a music teacher for the Bloomfield, CT Public School System. You can connect with Lisa Clayton via social media with the following links: Instagram: @lisaclayton123 and on Facebook: Lisa Clayton Music Page. Reverend Clayton is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Paine College, a HBCU in Augusta, GA, and received her MM from UConn. She has done doctoral work at both Hartford Seminary and Boston University. Her most recent recordings, Melodies of My Heart (2012) and My Forever (2021) are available on all digital media outlets.

Rev. Joquan M. Kinsey is a dedicated minister who has been actively involved in church and music throughout his life. He was ordained as a deacon in 2018 and as an elder in 2021 in the Seventh Episcopal District of the CME Church. After graduating from Miles College (HBCU) with a bachelor's degree in music performance, he served in various ministries in Alabama before returning to Waterbury, CT, where he served as the Praise and Worship Director at Christ CME Church. He is currently the pastor of Lighthouse CME Church in Mt. Vernon, NY.

Kevin Powell is based out of Hartford, Connecticut. Born into a family of musicians & singers, Kevin’s musical roots began in the church & since, has grown to become a highly respected musician who has performed with & produced for many artists in the music industry such as The Clark Sisters, Kim Burrell, Donnie McClurkin, Fred Hammond and many more.

Kevin has done various tours throughout the Country of Japan for over the last 14 years with his father & Legendary Gospel Jazz Musician “Hubert Powell” & The Heavenly Choir. Kevin is also a national musician with the Churches of God in Christ (COGIC) with over 7 million members worldwide and he has traveled all over the world spreading God’s love through the joy and power of music.