trumpet Palm Sunday

Last Sunday at Neffsville, Palm Sunday, a trumpeter added music to a service full of singing and choral music.  I wrote the trumpet part on the hymns.  The file is 17 minutes long or so, but if you want to sample the sounds:

singers at singing

Harmonies held its annual hymn sing at Blossom Hill Mennonite Church Sunday, March 24, 2013.  A choir of select singers from Berks and Conestoga Christian high schools added choral sounds.  The hymns sing itself featured a set of newer hymns from "Sing the Story" on the theme of season of spring (Passover, Pentecost, etc.) and a set on season of prayer, 19th and 20th century traditional hymns on prayer.  Here are the singers warming up.

flute solo audio file, Dec. 16

Yesterday Brynn Godshall played flute for an arrangement I made of "My soul proclaims with wonder" (Hymnal a worship book #181).  I played the organ.  I captured the performance (2:45 min.) on my H2 recorder.  Lovely flute.  Thanks, Brynn.  Listen here:

https://www.box.com/s/3vwexe2a7ptvy72tlmv1

The tune was written in 1990 by J. Harold Moyer, a long-time prof at Bethel College, Kansas.  One of his hymn tunes, FAITH, has gotten a lot of mileage in several hymnals, "I sought the Lord."

the high notes

When are notes high and when are they high?  With a counter-tenor it seems as if they are all high; but soon you get into the alto zone and then you just listen to the music.  Here's the ticket to the concert.  See the link on my Dec. 3 post if you want to hear him.

Bach for today

Someone sent me this youtube.  It’s an attractive attempt to show Bach's music as relevant to the modern world.  Notice, they didn’t have the heat in the church up and the musicians all dressed for the cold.  The singer, a counter-tenor, is singing in Lancaster's, Ware Center, Dec. 5, after a concert in Atlants and before a show in New York.  Art music (or classical music) is losing market share and some people attribute that to the tuxedo/gown dress and hierarchical conventions which often go with it which make it seem stuffy.  Yo-yo Ma is an example of someone trying to integrate into contemporary life styles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENFo_QOyiRA