Podcast: Play in new window
Greetings, everyone!
With the NPM conference behind us and the various publisher reading sessions still to come, I’m guessing a lot of listeners are in the process right now of choosing new music for their choirs over the coming year. And I’m here today to just compound further the eternal dilemma of “there’s so much great music, how can we possibly sing it all!?” (You’re welcome.)
My job here at GIA is to be the “Editor for Music Formation Resources.” Part of that is generating new materials—print materials like books and articles as well as this SingAmen! online media project. But another part is exploring the “Music Education” side of what GIA is already doing, something a lot of our church music friends may not be very familiar with, and see if there are materials there that can serve us in our churches. (Anyone who came to the GIA Fall Institute last year, and got to learn from Dr. James Jordan from Westminster Choir College, got a taste of that—he is amazing, and I’m thrilled that people on the pastoral music side of things got to hear some of what he has to say. And by the way, he will be back for the institute THIS fall, so if you missed him last October you have another chance—and our next podcast will feature an interview with him, so you’ll get to hear a little more then too.)
One of Dr. Jordan’s projects with GIA has been the “Evoking Sound” choral series, part of a whole series of educational materials he has created and curated over the course of many years. There are a huge number of gorgeous choral works in this series—if you sat down with a pile of them and just went through it, you’d discover that many of them are set to secular texts and very many of them composed at a pretty challenging level—a lot of double choir and divisi kind of writing, the sort of thing that many parish choirs would find a little too challenging. However, a bunch of us went through the entire stack of music and pulled out a subset of pieces that are within the reach of various levels of parish choirs, and I’m going to share a few of those with you today. A lot of this music was recorded by Dr. Jordan with either the Anam Cara chamber choir or his own Westminster Williamson Voices, and it’s just lovely—please see the SingAmen website or GIA publications for more information about the specific works. (And by the way—even though most of this is solid organ-based choral music, I promise I’ll hit some great contemporary resources in a future sampler!)
(Also by the way–if you’ve read this far, you can pretty much skip to about 2:50 in the podcast, because I pretty much say there what I just said here. :-))
So please have a listen! Once the introduction is done, I tried on the podcast to talk as little as possible—only enough to tell you what you’re hearing—and just to let you have half an hour or so of gorgeous choral music. Enjoy!
Music Credits:
Lead me on G-7457
by Brian A. Schmidt
Series: Evoking Sound
Vocal Forces: SATB
Recorded on: Silence into Light, by James Jordan and the Westminster Williamson Voices, CD-1026
Come down O love divine G-7032
by Ralph Vaughan Williams
Text Author: Bianco da Siena
Arranged by: Gerald Custer
Series: Evoking Sound
Vocal Forces: SATB
Accompaniment: Keyboard
Recorded on: Inscape: Choral Music of Gerald Custer, by James Jordan and the voices of Anam Cara, CD-754
Jerusalem My Happy Home G-7031
Arranged by: Gerald Custer
Series: Evoking Sound
Music Source: Early American melody
Vocal Forces: SAB
Accompaniment: Piano
Recorded on: Inscape: Choral Music of Gerald Custer, by James Jordan and the voices of Anam Cara, CD-754
When Jesus Wept G-7033
by William Billings
Text Author: William Billings
Arranged by: Gerald Custer
Series: Evoking Sound
Vocal Forces: SAB
Accompaniment: Piano
Recorded on: Inscape: Choral Music of Gerald Custer, by James Jordan and the voices of Anam Cara, CD-754
Lord Jesus Think on Me G-6237
by Richard Kenneth Fitzgerald
Series: Evoking Sound
Vocal Forces: SAB
O God of Light G-5931
by Richard Kenneth Fitzgerald
Text Author: Sarah Taylor
Series: Evoking Sound
Vocal Forces: SATB
Accompaniment: Organ
Winter’s Cold G-7024
by Gerald Custer
Series: Evoking Sound
Vocal Forces: SATB, Soprano Solo
Separate Instruments: 3 octaves Handchimes
Accompaniment: Piano
Recorded on: Inscape: Choral Music of Gerald Custer, by James Jordan and the voices of Anam Cara, CD-754
Come, O Christ G-6235
by Roger Ames
Text Author: Rembert Herbert
Series: Evoking Sound
Vocal Forces: SATB
Accompaniment: Organ
Pange Lingua Bruckner G-6481
by Anton Bruckner
Text Author: Thomas Aquinas
Edited By: James Jordan
Series: Evoking Sound
Vocal Forces: SATB
Accompaniment: Reduction
The Lord Bless You G-8192
by Peter C. Lutkin
Edited By: Joe Miller
Series: Westminster Choir
Vocal Forces: SATB
Accompaniment: Reduction
SingAmen! the Podcast, with Jennifer Kerr Budziak
Sound by Jim Bogdanich
SingAmen! opening music: Promenade, by Bob Moore (from Let Every Instrument Be Tuned for Praise, CD-491, from Liturgical Suite #4, G-4789.. ©GIA Publications, Inc).
SingAmen! closing music: Amen, (from More Sublime Chant, CD-459, The Cathedral Singers, Richard Proulx, conductor. ©GIA Publications, Inc.)
