It is time for all good church musicians to turn their thoughts to summer (and beyond). At MusiCalifornia last week, I was in reading sessions that featured a lot of good Christmas music, including what I thought was the freshest piece I heard: Lloyd Larson‘s arrangement of the old “Bring a Torch, Jeannette Isabella” tune with brand new words by Ken Bible. The anthem, entitled Love Has Come, is published by Alfred. We’ll review some of these in more detail for the Select 20 in the magazine, but you can see a small list below. I’m looking forward to attending the reading sessions at the National Church Music Conference this week. If you are anywhere near Indianapolis, the conference starts Tuesday, April 21, so you can still make plans to be there.
As to the summer…if you are a “liturgical” church musician you know that the time between Pentecost and the first Sunday of Advent is considered “Ordinary Time.” It is the longest “season” of the church year. My friend Marcia McFee has produced a new podcast with specific resources for the ordinary season, and you can find it at Marcia’s Worship Design Studio which is found at http://www.marciamcfee.com.
Marcia told me that she “had a wonderful call with my expert contributors! Tom Boomershine, John Thornburg, Doyle Burbank-Williams and I talked about what the lectionary holds (some great ideas!) but also about “starting points” for other themes not related particularly to the lectionary. Summer is a time when you might “draw outside the lines” of the lectionary and so this is a fun time of dreaming about the possibilities!” Check it out!
Here’s the list:
Advent of Our King – Sheldon Curry (Alfred 32250)
God With Us, Emmanuel – Joel Raney (Hope C5607) – this is the new Advent Candle lighting ceremony from Raney
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day – arr. Dave Williamson (Word 0 80689 18927 2) Note: this is not the “standard” tune…it is a new tune
Love Has Come – arr. Lloyd Larson (Alfred 32259)
On the Still and Silent Night – James Koerts (Lorenz 10/3718L)
Don’t forget to read Monday Morning Email today, as Doug Lawrence discusses the terms “contemporary” and “traditional” as they applied to worship. Just click here.
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Those songs are fine but did you hear the Camp Kirkland arrangement of “Joy to the World”? I bought that last year for Christmas even though I must have a dozen arrangements of “Joy to the World”. It was an awesome arrangement that really made our Sing-Along Christmas Concert. I found some colorful media images of Christmas that I had our media person show on the downbeat of each measure of the intro before going into the lyric slides. Very exciting!
Thanks for the comment. We review so much music that I’m not sure, but I think we reviewed Camp’s piece in the magazine.
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