Meyer Chamber started the choir by bringing together a few members of the local black Catholic community to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 1992.

The 45-member choir and members from throughout the Archdiocese of Boston have traveled nationally and internationally over their 20-year ministry.

On a trip to Italy the choir once sang for his Holiness Pope John Paul II at a general audience.

Other journeys included a Caribbean cruise, where members sang a Mass at the Cathedral of Old San Juan in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and performed at an outdoor concert at Emancipation Gardens, in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. The choir also went on a performance tour of Ireland in 2008.

"It was just an unbelievable experience, and the people that we met in all of these different cultures, and it just transformed us. Really, it is what has kept us together," Chambers told The Pilot.

At the dinner Chambers compared the choir's efforts to continue improving to making a cake while keeping "the mixture of our song just a little fresher, just a little newer, while remaining faithful to the flavor for which we have become known," Chambers said.

"Though people love it when we sing concerts, we are at our best when singing the liturgy," he said.

[Editor's note: Audio of interviews with DesRoses, Petty, Chambers, as well as music from the 20th Anniversary Mass Celebration are available at www.PilotCatholicNews.com.]