While captured by the Liberian warlord Prince Johnson in 1997, just before the start of Liberia's second civil war, Amy Jones-Collins did the only thing she thought could keep her alive.  She sang.

"Johnson loved music," said Jones-Collins, who was targeted by Johnson's rebel group because she worked for a government social-service agency. "Singing gave me an avenue for him to open up to me."

The bond saved her life, she said.

During her eventual escape, when she sat in hiding on a plane for 10 hours, she again thought back to the chorus and a mantra of her loving but hard-nosed chorus instructor at the University of Liberia, Agnes Nebo.

"‘You have to have discipline,'" Jones-Collins recalled her instructor saying. Jones-Collins found refuge in Nigeria, later fleeing to the United States.

The chorus had to disband during the first civil war in 1990 when there was a mass exodus from the university, which had connections to the existing government and was a target of the guerrilla army. Nebo fled the country and died in London in 2000.

But on Saturday, 60 alumni who are now scattered around the world will gather in Silver Spring to honor the woman who gave them the strength to sing. They will also support the proud university that is now in shambles.

"The chorus was a shining example of what the university stood for," said Jimmy Weeks, a Durham, N.C., resident and director of the new alumni chorus, who led a rehearsal Saturday at the Woodside United Methodist Church on Georgia Avenue. "It was an ambassador for the university."

Under Nebo's instruction, Weeks, a 1978 graduate, traveled all over the world to perform with the chorus. But when the National Patriotic Front of Liberia staged a revolution in 1989, many students and professors, including Nebo, fled the university, which had deep connections to the existing regime.

The school, originally established in 1881, lost its status as one of two accredited universities in Liberia at the time.

"Within a twinkle of an eye, everything crumbled," Jones-Collins said.

The roughly 40 alumni at rehearsal Saturday and the 20 that will join them before Saturday's performance are scattered across 20 states and seven countries, Jimmy Weeks said. Some, like Jones-Collins, left under dire circumstances.

Jimmy Weeks' brother, Monroe Weeks, a Frederick resident and the minister of music at Woodside, had to flee to the U.S. in 1980 before graduating from the university. At the time, a rebel group that would eventually rule the country arrested Weeks' father because he was a government official. Monroe Weeks had to go into hiding for a month and still has a scar on his back from being stabbed by a rebel soldier.

"My mother said, ‘You are getting out of here before these people kill you,'" Monroe Weeks recalled. Soon after, he fled to America.

With his college and chorus career cut short, Monroe Weeks had always wanted to sing again, like they did under Nebo. So when he and several alumni met in New York City earlier this year at an event celebrating the election of new President Barack Obama, they decided to act.

They held impromptu singing practice with about 10 members that lasted until 2 a.m. They performed in a New York City church the next morning. Through its lengthy alumni network online, about 50 more alumni signed on for Saturday's performance, which Monroe Weeks offered to hold at Woodside.

Jimmy Weeks eventually formed a set list of about 20 songs for the performance. Some are classical hymns, others are traditional African songs, but all are "songs we sang 30 years ago, songs that were hammered into us," said Rena Jarrett, a 1984 graduate and Upper Marlboro resident.

Given the scattered nature of the chorus, preparation for the performance required a creative solution. So Jimmy Weeks recorded instrumentation and vocal parts for each song at his home, posted them on YouTube and put them on a CD he sent to all members.

Alumni across the world could watch the 116 uploaded videos and practice at their homes or in their cars.

On Saturday the practice showed, even if Jimmy Weeks didn't want to admit it. While conducting, Jimmy Weeks channeled the fire of Nebo, flailing his arms angrily to motivate the singers.

Many times he stopped the rehearsal with a loud clap and stomp, reprimanding the chorus like they were college students again.

"When I watch these rehearsals, I see all of you laughing," Jimmy Weeks shouted as the large, baritone singers in the back row giggled to each other. "You need to wipe those smiles off your faces!"

The discipline paid off. The chorus perfected the arching vocal harmonies on "Kah Benneh Kah," a traditional Liberian song sung in the tribal language of Gola.

Through its performances, the chorus hopes to enact major change in Liberia, which is still reeling from the end of the second civil war in 2003.

"The extent of the war was so great there is not a faction of society that was not touched in some devastating way," said Gus Majors, who still lives in Liberia and traveled to Silver Spring for the performance.

With the university's president in attendance Saturday, the performance's proceeds will benefit the school and the establishment of a new fine arts center. The chorus also plans to work with the Liberian Literacy Foundation's, which delivers textbooks and educational resources to the country, to ultimately regain the school's accreditation.

For Jones-Collins, there is no reason to underestimate how the chorus can benefit young Liberians.

"Without it, I would likely be dead," she said.