You might have heard the NFL Players Choir perform on America’s Got Talent on Tuesday night. If you missed it, you have the chance to hear them in person tonight in Dallas at Project Unity’s “Together We Sing” musical event at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center.
The choir is led by former Carolina Panthers safety Cameron Newton and several current and former NFL players. In honor of gospel singer Richard Smallwood, the NFL Players Choir will perform an original composition called Together, written by SMU alumnus Derrick Horne, a music professor and director of the Meadows Jazz Orchestra at SMU.
The group, which has been around since 2008, performed Tuesday night on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. They sang renditions of Bill Withers’ “Lean On Me,” both a cappella and with a backing track. The choir impressed the judges enough to advance to the next round.
The Project Unity program starts at 6 p.m. with an awards segment. The musical portion begins at 7:30 p.m. A limited number of tickets are available at the door and on the Project Unity website.
Horne is a musician and composer with over three decades of musical productions and performances on over 600 publicly available recordings. Horne has channeled modern popular music styles while using traditional classical ensembles.
“Together We Sing” is Project Unity’s signature fundraising event. It brings together the business, faith and entertainment communities in the name of building unity.
The event benefits Project Unity and its efforts to bring dialogue, understanding and racial harmony to communities and places of business in North Texas.
The NFL Choir will be joined by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, a 200-voice multi-faith choir. Fort Worth native Tamela Mann and national Gospel recording artists Myron Williams, Niya Cotton and Darrell Blair are also scheduled to perform.
The NFL Choir is comprised of 12 performers. Besides Newton, the headliners are Leonard Weaver III, a two-time Pro Bowl choice and fullback from the Philadelphia Eagles, and Tully Banta-Cain, who led the New England Patriots in quarterback sacks for consecutive years.
The rest: Bryan Scott, Michael Gaines, Stephen Pierce, Dwayne Wright, Nick Roach, Tommie Harris, Tyrell Adams, Jamon Brown and Prince Amukamara.
The choir performs each year at the Super Bowl Gospel Celebration and performed the National Anthem at February’s Pro Bowl in Las Vegas.
On America’s Got Talent, the choir sang for an NBC audience and was the final act of the episode. After the players’ opening rendition, the choir received a resounding round of applause from the audience and a positive reaction from the judges.
AGT judge Simon Cowell surprised the performers and the audience when he asked for an encore, only this time without a track playing.
The players responded by belting out an a cappella version of Lean On Me.
Cowell told the choir that he was particularly impressed by their vocal skills.
“I can tell you really want to win,” he said, “and I love that.”
Correction, June 15 at 3 p.m.: In a previous version of this article, Cameron Newton was listed as a quarterback. He’s a safety.
