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Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
First-ever Gospel Fest Miami features a Haitian choir and plenty of star power
Choir leader Gamaliel Fleurantin said he isn't afraid to bring a new flavor to the traditional genre of gospel music. Since the age of five, the Miami musician has performed in church choirs — starting with the one lead by his mother — and is now leading a choir of his own. His choir, Gamaliel Fleurantin and Community Sounds, is breaking the barriers of the genre to blend traditional gospel worship songs with Haitian influences. The group, made up of mostly Haitian and a few Jamaican singers from various religious backgrounds, aims to bring the power of gospel music to the mainstream. 'We bring the church to the outside ... We're bringing the church everywhere we go,' said Fleurantin, who has been a choir and band director for various schools and universities throughout Miami, including the Young Men's Preparatory Academy, St. Thomas University and Miami Carol City Senior High. The gospel group evolved from a youth choir which began at Fleurantin's church, Hillside Church Miami in Little River, in 2002. Since the group opened up membership to outside the church in 2016, they've performed in many different venues, from competitions to baby showers, and recently, they've become a fan favorite in Miami. Earlier this year, Gamaliel Fleurantin and Community Sounds won the People's Choice Award at a competition hosted by the Adrienne Arsht Center's Gospel Center. Then, to Fleurantin's surprise, they won first place, earning them a prize of $5,000 and a performance spot at the inaugural Gospel Fest Miami Weekend, which kicks off this Friday, June 20 at the Arsht Center's Knight Concert Hall. 'It was just a proud moment, letting me know that, yes, I have faithful choir members, but also have the community, our supporters that want to see the best for this ministry,' he said. For Fleurantin, the win is personal. He now has the opportunity to open for famed gospel and R&B singer Michelle Williams — who is also a former member of Destiny's Child — as well as choir leader and gospel singer Hezekiah Walker, who is known as 'the hip-hop pastor.' But, it's Walker who Fleurantin is most excited to meet. 'I'm gonna be geeked out just a little bit,' he said with a laugh. 'A lot of the music that I look to, and that my culture, the Haitian culture, can relate to has been his songs.' The Gospel Fest will feature three days of concerts, panels and a film screening all highlighting the impact of gospel on American culture, faith and activism. The weekend is a culmination of a six-month season of gospel performances, which included free pop-up concerts around Miami-Dade County, all in an effort to spotlight the genre and its cultural significance in Miami. 'Every piece of it was curated to make sure that the overall culture and history was celebrated,' said Zaylin Yates, community engagement manager for the Arsht Center. 'It's not traditionally in a church, but the vision behind it is still to be a true gospel celebration.' Gospel Fest Miami is a first for the Arsht Center, but builds on the 'free gospel Sunday series,' a program that's been around for 15 years. The festival began in January with the Gospel Choir Invitational, a free choral competition where 25 collegiate, community and church choirs competed for a grand prize. 'It was just fantastic to see different cultures celebrated,' said Yates. 'Seeing all those different backgrounds ... I took that as success because it reached who it was supposed to reach.' The competition drew submissions from choirs from various faith traditions across Florida, including Catholic, Christian, Baptist and Penecostal — but it was ultimately a home-grown choir, Fleurantin's group, that took the prize. 'It was just an overall great performance,' Yates said, adding that Fleurantin's choir came in looking sharp with custom robes. 'If there's anything about a traditional gospel crowd, they love them a good set of robes... They had their, how some of us like to call it 'choir-ography' very intact and they just sounded great.' Part of the goal of the festival, according to organizers, was to celebrate Miami-based artists by putting them on a larger stage. To help find local talent, the Arsht Center turned to the Miami-Dade Alliance of Gospel Music Professionals, a group of musicians, artists, radio personalities and directors that has been working for over 50 years to promote and preserve the history of gospel music. The alliance was instrumental in organizing 'Gospel on the Road' events, which featured free community concerts made up of singers, dancers and spoken word artists from Miami. Yates said the weekend will be both 'fun and educational,' with panels and events that discuss the origins of gospel music and how influential the genre is in popular music today. 'I feel like gospel is always just the base for any good musician, singer, artist in general, and it influences the overall culture, from jazz to R&B, to pop, rock,' Yates said. 'So it was a no-brainer to just highlight that and for the Arsht Center to bring that to the forefront.' One of the events this weekend is a free screening of the film 'Gospel: The Gospel Train,' which explores the original pioneers of gospel music like Mahalia Jackson in Chicago and how the genre made its way down south. The festival will also host pre-show conversations about gospel's influence on the Civil Rights Movement, and how the music served not only as a form of worship and spiritual connection, but also as a form of protest. As someone who grew up in Haitian churches, Fleurantin wanted his choir to sing some of the popular gospel songs, like Michael W. Smith's 'How Majestic is your name' in Creole. He said it's a way to celebrate his own culture while showing the world another side of Haiti aside from all the political strife. 'it gives them an opportunity to see the Haitian culture in a different light, as opposed to what's being said and what's being shared on the news.' Fleurantin said. The music teacher said he has a certain talent in bringing out 'excellence' in his choir members — whether they are an all-boys middle school choir or young adult choir like Community Sounds. Next year, the group marks ten years since Fleurantin began directing the choir — a milestone they hope to celebrate with a performance of over 100 people, including past and present members. 'The gospel realm is constantly evolving,' he said. 'I hope as it evolves we're able to add our stamp to the evolution.' IF YOU GO: WHAT: Gospel Fest Miami Weekend WHEN: June 20-22, 2025 WHERE: Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami COST: All events free (RSVP required) except for Michelle Williams ticketed concert. Tickets are $36-$76. INFORMATION: 305-949-6722 or This story was produced with financial support from Trish and Dan Bell and from donors comprising the South Florida Jewish and Muslim Communities, including Khalid and Diana Mirza, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
Calgary Herald
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
The newest Tory senator is a Trudeau appointee. What to know about about David Adams Richards
Article content He's married to Peggy McIntyre, with whom he has two sons, John Thomas and Anton Richards. Article content While his first published work after studying literature and philosophy at St. Thomas University in the early 1970s was a small book of poems, Richards became an acclaimed Canadian novelist with 16 titles on his resume, along with six non-fiction books and two collections of short stories. Article content His writings have been translated into 12 languages and are part of the curriculum of Canadian and U.S. universities, according to the Senate of Canada. Article content In a style said to be influenced by the likes of Leo Tolstoy and compared to William Blake, his fiction work is mostly set in the Miramichi Valley where he grew up and the characters are inspired by the lives and experiences of its poor and working-class people. Article content Article content Article content Richards has been a writer-in-residence at multiple universities and colleges across Canada, three of which have awarded him honorary doctorates — the University of New Brunswick (1995), Mount Allison University in Sackville (2008), and St. Thomas University in Fredericton (1990). He received the same honour from the Atlantic School of Theology in 2010. Article content In 1998, he became one of just three Canadian writers to win a Governor General's Literary Award in both fiction and non-fiction for Nights Below Station Street (1988) and Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi (1998). Writers Laura G. Salverson and Hugh MacLennan are the others. Meanwhile, his 1993 fiction novel For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down and 2007's The Lost Highway were also nominated for the government honour. Article content Article content In 2000, his Mercy Among the Children was a co-winner of the Giller Prize along with Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje, the only time two recipients have shared the honour in its 31-year history. Lost Highway and The Friends of Meager Fortune (2006) were both longlisted for the Giller. Article content Richards has also been awarded two Gemini Awards for scriptwriting (Small Gifts and For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down), the Alden Nowlan Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Canadian Authors Association Award for his novel Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace, the 2011 Matt Cohen Award for a distinguished lifetime of contribution to Canadian literature and the Canada-Australia Literary Prize. Article content He is a member of the Order of New Brunswick (2005) and the Order of Canada (2009). Article content Richards the Senator Article content When first appointed to the Senate by Trudeau in 2017, two years after the then-prime minister established the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments to make the Upper House less partisan, Richards joined the relatively new Independent Senators Group (ISG).
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
This Haitian American funeral director makes Miami families feel seen
When Miramar native Evans St. Fort opened St. Fort's Funeral Home in North Miami Beach in 2003, clients were skeptical of a funeral director still in his 20s. After sitting with him for a consultation, however, they quickly realized that St. Fort had far more experience than his youthful demeanor suggested, since St. Fort had spent his childhood watching his father manage a funeral home in Haiti. 'Clients would come and sit with me and look at me crazy because I was just 24 years old, but I knew what I was doing,' he said. 'They just couldn't believe that they were talking to someone so young.' Under St. Fort's leadership, the funeral home has become well-known among Miami's Haitian community and has served thousands of families over the past two-plus decades. While small mom-and-pop funeral homes have increasingly become a target for private equity and corporate ownership, St. Fort, now 46, said he has rejected offers to buy his business, preferring to keep the operation family-run. St. Fort's commitment to both the Miami community and to Haiti, where families were offered free funeral services following the 2010 earthquake, was recently recognized by the city of North Miami Beach, which renamed a street 'St. Fort Drive' last weekend. St. Fort grew up in Miramar and spent his summers with family in Haiti, where his father, Joseph St. Fort, had opened a funeral home in the '90s. He graduated from Miramar High School in 1997 and attended St. Thomas University before pursuing a degree in mortuary studies at Lynn University. After graduating in 2002, St. Fort had an internship at a funeral home while also working part-time at other funeral homes. Although he was just starting his professional career, he had a strong interest in building his own business and eventually found a vacant building that had previously been used as a funeral home in North Miami Beach that he hoped to purchase. St. Fort was 25 at the time, but his persistence in negotiating with the owners of the property paid off. He bought the funeral home using money he received after being in a car accident and funding from his parents and set a goal of becoming the best Black-owned funeral home in Miami. One of the first things he did was update the aesthetics of the traditional funeral home. 'When you walk into our funeral home, the way I wanted to set it up was to make it feel like you're in a hotel lobby,' he said. 'We went with high-end fixtures, nice furniture — modern, contemporary, fresh — so that when you're walking in, you're not feeling depressed.' The facility includes a chapel and reception space and offers cremation services. St. Fort said the business now manages an average of five funerals a week, with him and his team of eight sometimes servicing two funerals at the same time. He has noticed that more clients in recent years are opting for cremation services, as costs for funerals and grave spaces have risen. In that time, corporate entities have been buying out family-run businesses, and the increasingly pricey Miami real estate market has also had an effect. 'When I first got into the business, you could purchase a space [at a local cemetery] for $2,000,' he said, 'Now, you can't get a space cheaper than $15,000. So the reason I say it's dangerous is because what's happening is they're not giving families options anymore.' Today, St. Fort estimates that 70% of business comes via word of mouth. Miami postal worker Carr Alexis, 50, has known St. Fort for years and said he would not have had his late mother's service at any other funeral home. As a Haitian man, there are certain nuances that he only felt comfortable with a Haitian funeral director handling, he said. 'We Haitian people are very dignified,' he said. 'Evans doesn't go about Americanizing [our funerals].' St. Fort has noticed many things about Haitian funerals that separate them from typical American funerals. For example, the color red is frowned upon and cannot be worn. If a child dies, the parents cannot follow the deceased child into the cemetery. Passing out is common during Haitian funerals, and if one person passes out, others generally follow. Similarly, if one person yells loudly during a funeral, other people will, too. 'Haitians are much more emotional and comfortable with sharing their emotions,' he said. Despite Alexis' reassurances about St. Fort, he said his relatives from Montreal came to Miami for his mother's funeral with high standards and a skepticism about whether St. Fort would be able to give her the send-off she deserved. But by the end of the services, they agreed he had lived up to their expectations. 'When everything was done, all I saw was hugs and handshakes thrown at Evans,' Alexis said. Through his work, St. Fort said he has had the opportunity to plan services for the families of some prominent figures in the community, including Haitian musician Wyclef Jean and three-time Miami Heat champion Udonis Haslem. Having Jean sit in St. Fort's office to plan a family member's funeral was a full-circle moment for the funeral director, who grew up hearing people say negative things about the country from which his family came. 'When I was young, I was afraid to tell people that I was Haitian,' St. Fort said. 'But one day I was watching TV and I was watching a Fugees concert, and I saw Wyclef hold up the Haitian flag. When they blew up, I was like, 'Man, so it's not so bad to be Haitian.'' St. Fort said that while his funeral home has received 'a lot' of offers from prospective buyers, including some north of $5 million, he has declined because selling runs counter to his family's mission. 'When we've been approached, I've talked to my family about it, and the goal was not to build something and sell it but build something for the community and pass it along generations,' he said. In addition to the North Miami Beach facility, St. Fort in March opened a funeral home in Riverdale Park, Maryland, with a college classmate who has had success in the area, and he has also started a yacht rental business. His passion for serving others, however, is central to the work his father started in Haiti decades ago. He recommends that anyone pursuing a similar career have the same intention in mind. 'Don't initially get into it thinking, 'I'm doing this strictly for money,' because if you go in there thinking that, it's not going to work,' he said. 'You really have to have a place in your heart where you're about serving people.'
Miami Herald
05-06-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
This Haitian American funeral director makes Miami families feel seen
When Miramar native Evans St. Fort opened St. Fort's Funeral Home in North Miami Beach in 2003, clients were skeptical of a funeral director still in his 20s. After sitting with him for a consultation, however, they quickly realized that St. Fort had far more experience than his youthful demeanor suggested, since St. Fort had spent his childhood watching his father manage a funeral home in Haiti. 'Clients would come and sit with me and look at me crazy because I was just 24 years old, but I knew what I was doing,' he said. 'They just couldn't believe that they were talking to someone so young.' Under St. Fort's leadership, the funeral home has become well-known among Miami's Haitian community and has served thousands of families over the past two-plus decades. While small mom-and-pop funeral homes have increasingly become a target for private equity and corporate ownership, St. Fort, now 46, said he has rejected offers to buy his business, preferring to keep the operation family-run. St. Fort's commitment to both the Miami community and to Haiti, where families were offered free funeral services following the 2010 earthquake, was recently recognized by the city of North Miami Beach, which renamed a street 'St. Fort Drive' last weekend. St. Fort grew up in Miramar and spent his summers with family in Haiti, where his father, Joseph St. Fort, had opened a funeral home in the '90s. He graduated from Miramar High School in 1997 and attended St. Thomas University before pursuing a degree in mortuary studies at Lynn University. After graduating in 2002, St. Fort had an internship at a funeral home while also working part-time at other funeral homes. Although he was just starting his professional career, he had a strong interest in building his own business and eventually found a vacant building that had previously been used as a funeral home in North Miami Beach that he hoped to purchase. St. Fort was 25 at the time, but his persistence in negotiating with the owners of the property paid off. He bought the funeral home using money he received after being in a car accident and funding from his parents and set a goal of becoming the best Black-owned funeral home in Miami. One of the first things he did was update the aesthetics of the traditional funeral home. 'When you walk into our funeral home, the way I wanted to set it up was to make it feel like you're in a hotel lobby,' he said. 'We went with high-end fixtures, nice furniture — modern, contemporary, fresh — so that when you're walking in, you're not feeling depressed.' The facility includes a chapel and reception space and offers cremation services. St. Fort said the business now manages an average of five funerals a week, with him and his team of eight sometimes servicing two funerals at the same time. He has noticed that more clients in recent years are opting for cremation services, as costs for funerals and grave spaces have risen. In that time, corporate entities have been buying out family-run businesses, and the increasingly pricey Miami real estate market has also had an effect. 'When I first got into the business, you could purchase a space [at a local cemetery] for $2,000,' he said, 'Now, you can't get a space cheaper than $15,000. So the reason I say it's dangerous is because what's happening is they're not giving families options anymore.' Today, St. Fort estimates that 70% of business comes via word of mouth. Miami postal worker Carr Alexis, 50, has known St. Fort for years and said he would not have had his late mother's service at any other funeral home. As a Haitian man, there are certain nuances that he only felt comfortable with a Haitian funeral director handling, he said. 'We Haitian people are very dignified,' he said. 'Evans doesn't go about Americanizing [our funerals].' St. Fort has noticed many things about Haitian funerals that separate them from typical American funerals. For example, the color red is frowned upon and cannot be worn. If a child dies, the parents cannot follow the deceased child into the cemetery. Passing out is common during Haitian funerals, and if one person passes out, others generally follow. Similarly, if one person yells loudly during a funeral, other people will, too. 'Haitians are much more emotional and comfortable with sharing their emotions,' he said. Despite Alexis' reassurances about St. Fort, he said his relatives from Montreal came to Miami for his mother's funeral with high standards and a skepticism about whether St. Fort would be able to give her the send-off she deserved. But by the end of the services, they agreed he had lived up to their expectations. 'When everything was done, all I saw was hugs and handshakes thrown at Evans,' Alexis said. Through his work, St. Fort said he has had the opportunity to plan services for the families of some prominent figures in the community, including Haitian musician Wyclef Jean and three-time Miami Heat champion Udonis Haslem. Having Jean sit in St. Fort's office to plan a family member's funeral was a full-circle moment for the funeral director, who grew up hearing people say negative things about the country from which his family came. 'When I was young, I was afraid to tell people that I was Haitian,' St. Fort said. 'But one day I was watching TV and I was watching a Fugees concert, and I saw Wyclef hold up the Haitian flag. When they blew up, I was like, 'Man, so it's not so bad to be Haitian.'' St. Fort said that while his funeral home has received 'a lot' of offers from prospective buyers, including some north of $5 million, he has declined because selling runs counter to his family's mission. 'When we've been approached, I've talked to my family about it, and the goal was not to build something and sell it but build something for the community and pass it along generations,' he said. In addition to the North Miami Beach facility, St. Fort in March opened a funeral home in Riverdale Park, Maryland, with a college classmate who has had success in the area, and he has also started a yacht rental business. His passion for serving others, however, is central to the work his father started in Haiti decades ago. He recommends that anyone pursuing a similar career have the same intention in mind. 'Don't initially get into it thinking, 'I'm doing this strictly for money,' because if you go in there thinking that, it's not going to work,' he said. 'You really have to have a place in your heart where you're about serving people.'
Miami Herald
19-05-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Market volatility leaves some uneasy about 401(k) retirement investments
Bill Tiedemann is keeping a close eye on his retirement accounts these days. The 66-year-old resident of Mendota Heights, Minnesota, knows better than to make knee-jerk changes to the long-term plan. But a nosediving stock market still spurred some anxiety in him last month, as President Donald Trump's evolving but turbulent tariff policy caused wider strife among investors. At its worst, near Liberation Day on April 2, Tiedemann estimates his investments lost about 20% in value. In the weeks since, while U.S. stocks have seen major recovery amid a cooling trade war, he says they are now up about 5%. "I think we all are anxious," Tiedemann said. "But if you are smart with your investments, you don't move them." Many investors are breathing a sigh of relief as the S&P 500 returned to profitable territory this week, wiping out losses that had piled up since its February high point. Still in the red this year are the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, though both are closer to regaining the same ground held in January. Months before sweeping tariff policies roiled the stock market, Thrivent Chief Financial and Investment Officer David Royal expected greater volatility this year. The executive at the Minneapolis-based financial services provider based his theory on last year's relatively low volatility, paired with increased pressure on the Fed to keep inflation in check and the job economy strong. Although tariffs have been a driver, Royal said simultaneous risks of inflation and reduced economic growth expectations "caused even more volatility than I or probably anyone envisioned." He said it typically takes longer for economic weaknesses to show up in data than inflation, potentially making it "very easy for (the Fed) to get behind the curve." Royal has predicted conservative growth in the stock market for the full year. "But it's going to feel like you've gone through a roller coaster ride," Royal said. "I think that's what we're seeing this year: The mirror image of last year." Such outlooks are likely to test the mettle of people who are building 401(k) plans or depending on them for retirement. Lou Anne Sexton, 63, of Mendota Heights, Minnesota, retired from St. Thomas University in January and lately has wondered if it was the right call, financially speaking. Future uncertainty and volatility is a concern, she said, since she recently began to rely on her 401(k) to deliver. She said she and her husband meet regularly with their financial adviser to ask if they should change anything. The response so far: "Ride this out." It is in times like these that financial advisers can prove their value, said Bertie Cayzer, a senior portfolio manager at Plymouth-based Wealth Enhancement Group. Outside of a few overreactions, Cayzer said his firm has yet to hear much concern from the clients. Those properly managed in the latter stages of working life should really have no worries, he said, and the bouts of volatility offer opportunities to invest in cheaper equities and diversify. An adviser doing the work should help clients find their tolerance for risk and plan appropriately for their lifestyle. And at this point, "optimism and realism should counter pessimism," Cayzer said. Though 401(k) holders often set-and-forget their investment strategies, more people altered positions this year in apparent reaction to tariff-induced downturns, according to analytics firm Alight Solutions in Chicago. Alight, which maintains an index of 401(k) trading data back to 1997, recorded a shift away from equities like stocks and toward fixed-income mutual funds that rely on bonds for more conservative growth. Overall trading activity was higher than normal throughout the first quarter. Above-average trading levels persisted in early April as the U.S. trade war escalated. Investors left equities and later bought back in on the rebound, said Rob Austin, Alight's head of thought leadership. Still, such trading among 401(k) holders represents a small margin of the widely used retirement plan, Austin said, as in absolute terms only a fraction of a percentage point is traded on a given day. On the Monday after Liberation Day, Austin said retirement investors showed approximately 10 times the normal level of trading activity. Experienced investors know the market will drop time and again and stay the course, Austin said, but for those "who did take action, it's going to look really, really bad." "This year is really a microcosm of everything" we typically see, Austin said, adding "people are very quick to sell out of equities when the market drops" and it often takes time before comfort returns to buy back in. Meantime, some investors are taking the swings in stride. "I don't get anxiety over it," Brian Haan, 39, of Lakeville, Minnesota, said of the roller-coaster stock market. "I hold my nose, and I know that it will go back up." Mary Schmidt, 80, of Bloomington, Minnesota, and her husband are past the point of relying heavy on stocks. She has no sleepless nights when the market takes wild turns. "We kept ours as-is," Schmidt said. "We're diversified." Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
