Here's some new music to feed your soul:
Beth Neilsen Chapman's two-disc set entitled Prism. It's songs from a wide variety of religious traditions spanning the world.
Fleet Foxes. A Seattle alt-group that has some amazing vocals and very unusual lyrics. Harmonies like you wouldn't believe. Good - no, great - driving music. Now I only need the gas money to take a road trip...
I got arm-twisted into singing something for my last Sunday (July 20) at Saint Diverse, my summer internship parish. I briefly toyed with singing "Hear Ye, Israel" from Elijah, since that would sort of go with the readings, but the space is not singer-friendly, and the piece starts out on a high F sharp, for heaven's sake. If I'm not getting paid, I'm not going to risk a note that sits right on the break in a room that's dead as a doornail. I think it's going to be "Amazing Grace." Always a crowd fave, and everytime I've sung it, someone has come up and said "I want you to sing that at my funeral." That's either a compliment, or they'd rather be dead than hear it again out of my mouth.
This coming Sunday, when I'll be preaching on the Parable of the Sower and the Seed, there will be a teenaged tenor singing "I Believe."
Oh, dear.
Thanks for the musical tip. I listened to snippets of the Chapman CD on iTunes and that is something I will have to download. I have some of her CDs and her voice is something not of this world.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of holy, you may want to listen sometime to Harvest Home by Jay Ungar and Molly Mason. That is as holy of music as I've ever heard in a church. I can't get enough of that CD and I've had it for sometime.