1991 was the year of the first important crisis. After the previous year characterized by important success (TV, the first review, our first concert out of our county), we had the first period of serious internal facing. Nine years passed from foundation, many people entered and as many exited from the band. We progressed in music practice and we made many choices about group policy. But in that moment we had an incurable fracture between the choices of almost all the musicians and those of the choristers, absolutely diverging each other. There were strong words, as always happens when FRIENDS loose accordance. The group broke, wobbled and risked the definitive closure. But it reborn from its own ashes and TURNED PAGE.
1989 was the year of the TV debut. In February, May and September we recorded some songs being proposed by a local emerging television named Rete 7.
In 1990, after our adhesion to AERCO, an important local choir association, we participated to our first choral review, an occasion to face other groups and experiences, which is very important for musical growth.
1987 was characterized by the entrance in the group by some vocalists coming from the experience of another band from Bologna, playing the same kind of music. Their arrival gave more consciousness of own possibilities to the group, overcoming old psychological subjections.
In 1988 the Associazione Corale Spirituals Ensemble (Choral Association) was founded and Danilo Accorsi, playing as vocalist from 1983, was voted as its first President. Perhaps due to his ... weight in the group, he resisted against the Wall’s tumbling, Gulf wars, elimination trials and various blight temptations, and is still on charge!
At the end of 1985 we stopped the relationship with St. Joseph parish which hosted the group from its founding, and began the wandering among various rehearsal rooms lasting till 1991. In fact it’s difficult to find an adequate room for our spacing exigencies (the number of fellows was almost halved after initial enthusiasms, but we were still many).
In 1986 Beppe Cervino adhered to the group, almost contemporaneously to a momentary loosing in the relationships with Wraj. This leaded to a new shifting in the features of the band which started affording swing, through some reinterpretations of songs leaded to success by Manhattan Transfer.
The President, 30 Kg ago ...
1984 is the year we met Wraj Firmino who, though not constantly, signed many arrangements for the group giving his artistic fingerprint. It’s from his work we had a more complex structure in arrangements and the introduction of percussions, rhythms, new sounds and atmospheres and the first true choral arrangements.
The name “SPIRITUAL ENSEMBLE” (note that there leaks an “s”) appears for the first time on the poster of the second exhibition, done in the same site on March 26th in the same year. But for the next concert, on May 14th, 1983 at Meloncello Theater it appears the definitive name.
A rare image of Wray on the stage (He’s the histrionic green dressed person on the right).
On May 8th, 1982, 4 friends from Bologna (Italy), Gian Paolo Todeschini, Rossella Sabattini, Raffaele Tracchi and Roberta Sacchetti, decided to form a quartet to sing Spirituals. They started writing some simple arrangements, and soon they made proselytes. Meanwhile they passed summer, autumn and part of winter rehearsing in the halls of St. Joseph parish in Bologna, and when they jumped on the stage for their first concert they were in good party.
On January 8th, 1983, at 9 p.m., at Bellinzona Theater they were 40! with drums, bass, piano, keyboards and 4 guitars, almost 30 singers, one actor explaining the meaning of lyrics and a ballet group formed by 3 girls doing simple choreographies related to songs.