Fort Valley State University’s choir took home the very first HBCU Choir of the Year award, and the win came with tears in the balcony and a moment nobody on stage saw coming. The ensemble, featuring Loren Michelle and Tiffany Boone, beat out choirs from Howard, Morgan State, NC A&T and Southern University to claim the inaugural category at the 41st Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards. For a program built from two smaller campus groups just five years ago, it’s a full-circle moment.
A Category Built for Moments Like This
The Stellar Awards created HBCU Choir of the Year specifically to spotlight collegiate gospel music, and the first class of nominees came stacked. Howard brought in Damien Sneed and Kierra Sheard Kelly. Southern leaned on Cameron Blain. Morgan State and NC A&T carried their own national reputations into the room. Fort Valley State was the lone Georgia school on the ballot, and somehow it walked away with the trophy. That result alone says something about how far the program has come.
How the Choir Even Got Here
The FVSU Choir wasn’t always one group. It formed in 2021 when the university merged its Concert Choir with the Voices of Faith Baptist Student Union Choir, folding two smaller traditions into a single ensemble. Since then, the choir has grown into roughly 45 members pulled from majors across campus, singing at convocations, commencement, Homecoming, worship services and recruitment events all year long. It’s less a performance group and more a campus institution at this point, one that doubles as a leadership pipeline for students chasing something beyond the classroom.
Choir Director Alicia Carner-McDonald has led choirs for more than three decades, and she called the win surreal in the moments right after it was announced. She said she heard her own kids screaming from the balcony before the news even fully registered. For McDonald, the trophy isn’t a stopping point. She described it as a door opening rather than a finish line, and she wants the choir treating this as motivation to keep performing at a high level rather than resting on the moment.
What the Win Means Beyond the Trophy
Choir member Jordan Daniels admitted the news almost felt unreal when it first came through. That reaction tracks with how much the nomination alone had already meant to the group before the win was ever announced. McDonald has been clear that this recognition reaches past Fort Valley State’s own campus. She’s framed the program as representing HBCUs across the region, not just her own school, pointing to nearby institutions like Albany State and Savannah State as part of the same broader story.
Georgia doesn’t always get credit for its gospel talent, according to McDonald, who has said the state gets overlooked compared to other hubs. This win pushes back on that directly. It puts a Georgia HBCU choir on a national stage that’s often dominated by bigger-market programs, and it does so in the very first year the category existed.
The Bigger Picture for HBCU Choral Programs
For decades, HBCU choirs have shaped gospel music without a dedicated national award to show for it. They’ve trained singers, musicians and worship leaders who went on to influence the genre well beyond campus chapels. The Stellar Awards’ decision to finally create this category, hosted by gospel star Kirk Franklin at Charlotte’s Spectrum Center, gives that legacy a stage it never had before. Fort Valley State winning it in year one puts a marker down for every other HBCU choir program watching from the sidelines.
McDonald has already said she wants the recognition to open doors for schools that haven’t had this kind of platform yet. Former choir member Allen Brown, who sang with the group for over four years, put it simply: where a student starts doesn’t limit how far the program can go. That message is baked into how the choir talks about the win, less as a personal accolade and more as proof of what’s possible for HBCU music programs that rarely get this kind of spotlight.
What Comes Next
The choir isn’t slowing down. New members are already joining ahead of the fall semester, and the group is preparing for university events plus a run of community performances. McDonald has talked about chasing bigger stages going forward, treating this Stellar Award as a launching point rather than a peak. For a program that started as two separate choirs merging together in 2021, the next few years look like a genuine opportunity to build something larger.
Fort Valley State’s choir now carries a distinction no other HBCU program can claim. It won the very first HBCU Choir of the Year award, and everyone involved seems to understand exactly what that means for the school and for HBCU gospel music as a whole.
