music camp

Well, it's a week-long day-school called Created2Praise. I have a 45-minute class called "keyboard to organ." The students all play piano and get a thrill out of transferring their skills to a larger instrument. Here's the real exceptional bunch of kids:

guest musician Kauffman

Sunday, Ryan Kauffman, saxophonist, was a guest musician. Some have asked what he played as the offertory. It was #229 in our blue hymnal, "Lord, you have come to the lake shore." Check out Ryan and buy/listen to some of his music here.

Karla recital

Last evening the lovely soprano Karla presented a fund raising recital. She is one of our song leaders when she is not away at school or in service. Four pianists (40 fingers) took turns accompanying her selections from a Swedish folk song, to Copeland, to a Mozart aria, to a Messiah aria. Funds will assist in her going to teach music in Bolivia this fall. At the piano is Carolyn North; Jon Landis is standing in as her prop in the Mozart aria. In the line-up pic, Darlene is far left.

back on the job

Today I tackle the work piled up from nine days away. This past Sunday was just vacation, driving through the mountains, including the Blue Ridge Parkway out of the Great Smokey Mountains. The previous Sunday was an off campus working Sunday at the Hymn Society of America convention in Birmingham, Alabama. Everyday included singing in the Samford University chapel. Here's the chapel and the singing inside. Many attendees were top feeders of the hymn world--hymnal editors, writers, composers, scholars and other trend-setters. I met my classmate from my graudate studies in the early 1970s Ruth Duck who has has her name in nearly every hymnal published since the 1980s. Our blue hymnal has three of hers, including #419, Lead on, O Cloud of Presence.

lower lights

Several persons asked about the hymn tune I played for the offertory. The refrain goes: let the lower lights be burning. The first words are: brightly beams our Father's mercy. Listen to it and see the words here: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/l/l/llowerlb.htm

Next two Sundays, July 11 and 18, I am on working vacation. I'll be at The Hymn Society of America annual convention at Birmingham, Ala. I'll be in the office several hours both weeks.