BELOVED VOICES

An Evanston native launches a Lake Forest gospel choir rooted in connection, inclusion, and music’s power to uplift.

Matthew Hunter has spent much of his life thinking about sound—how voices rise, how they blend, and how music can reach people before they even know they need it. In June, the Evanston native and lifelong singer turned up the volume. Hunter launched the Beloved Community Gospel Choir in Lake Forest, a nonprofit ensemble built on a simple, sturdy idea: music belongs to everyone, and everyone belongs in the music. “We need each other,” he says.

The choir, based at Christ Church and open to all with no auditions required, is rooted in the African American gospel tradition and designed to create something larger than harmony: connection, joy, and the kind of shared experience Hunter first encountered as a child in church. “I discovered my love of music through the church,” he says. “I saw the joy it brought to people.” And felt it. “You’d sing, you’d shout, you’d feel it,” he says. “Sometimes you’d get chills.”

Years later, while Hunter was a student at Michigan State University, a pastor gave him a description of music’s reach that has stayed with him: “Music has the ability to enter into the spirit of people without permission.” Hunter adds, “Why wouldn’t I want to be in this field?”

Now he wants the Beloved Community Gospel Choir to carry that spirit throughout Lake County, partnering with organizations that serve youth, older adults, people with disabilities, and those facing hardship. A visit to a soup kitchen could become more than a performance—voices rising, heads lifting, toes tapping, a room changing, even briefly. “Music can uplift people together and be transformative,” Hunter says. “It can be a welcome jolt to one’s life.”

Education has provided another stage for Hunter. After Michigan State, he returned home to teach music at Chute Middle School, his alma mater. On June 1, he began another chapter as assistant principal at Old Orchard Junior High School in Skokie. Two starts, side by side. Different settings, same purpose.

Hunter hopes the choir becomes a place where differences are not merely welcomed, but essential, and where voices blend without surrendering what makes each distinct. No auditions. No barriers. Just an invitation. Your voice is welcome here.

Hunter isn’t preoccupied with filling seats or perfecting sound. He talks about people—and what can happen when someone carrying something heavy walks away a little lighter. “We need each other,” he says again. In June, Hunter opened the door and let the music do the rest.

For more information, visit bcgospel.org.