Written to specifically address the concerns and needs of the sound person who serves ministries and churches, this comprehensive handbook blends the relational and technical aspects of church sound in a straightforward and easy-to-understand manner.
The Bo-Kaap contains a wealth of stories; of slavery and emancipation, far away exotic lands, food and spices, music and culture, and most of all everyday life.
Humorous and occasionally poignant anecdotes about the wel on tour, in particular wel choirs. Memoirs are also collected from those who have toured Wales.
Since time immemorial, the response of the living to death has been to commemorate the life of the departed through ceremonies and rituals. For nearly two millennia, the Christian quest for eternal peace has been expressed in a poetic-musical structure known as the requiem. Traditional requiem texts, among them the anonymous medieval Latin poem Dies Irae ('Day of Wrath'), have inspired an untold number of composers in different ages and serving different religions, Western and Eastern. This book, the first comprehensive survey of requiem music for nearly half a century, provides a great deal of diverse and detailed information that will be of use to the professional musician, the musical scholar, the choral conductor, the theologian and liturgist, and the general reader. The main body of the guide is a description of some 250 requiems. Each entry includes a concise biography of the composer and a description of the composition. Details of voicing, orchestration, editions, and discography are given. An extensive bibliography includes dictionaries, encyclopedias, prayer books, monographs, and articles. An appendix lists more than 1700 requiems not discussed within the main text.
Winner of the 2002 National Choral Award for Outstanding Choral Publication They are at the heart of every community in Canada, whether they be singing in concert or rehearsal, in a worship service or at a special event. They are Canada's choirs, and their dedication to their craft is a source of both entertainment and inspiration. And at the heart of every choir, there is a choir master who, through talent and commitment, brings the voices together. In Their Own Words relates the stories of Canada's most distinguished and innovative choir masters. In their own words, each tells of their life in music, and shares their thoughts on music and the role of the choir. Many of those profiled have gained international recognition, winning prizes overseas. All have helped to bring the vocal heart-pourings of enthusiastic singers to audiences across the country.
This is a thorough-going study of Monteverdi's Vespers, the single most significant and most widely known musical print from before the time of J.S. Bach. The author examines Monteverdi's Vespers from multiple perspectives, combining his own research with all that is known and thought of the Vespers by other scholars. The historical origin as well as the musical and liturgical context of the Vespers are surveyed; similarly the controversial historiography of the Vespers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is scrutinized and evaluated. A series of analytical chapters attempt to clarify Monteverdi's compositional process and the relationship between music and text in the light of recent research on modal and tonal aspects of early seventeenth century music. The final section is devoted to thirteen chapters investigating performance practice issues of the early seventeenth century and their application to the Vespers, including general and specific recommendations for performance where appropriate. The book concludes with a series of informational appendices, including the psalm cursus for Vespers of all major feasts in the liturgical calendar, texts, and structural outlines for the Vespers compositions based on a cantus firmus, an analytical discography, and bibliographies of seventeenth-century musical and theoretical sources.
(Meredith Music Resource). This book provides a broad curriculum or guide for directors emphasizing music as a fine art or cultural, aesthetic study. Through its presentation of lecture and resource materials including the teaching of timbre, structural elements, form, styles and performance practice, it provides justification for including the band program as a core curriculum subject. The text also presents musical examples of varying levels of difficulty from the band repertory which offer an excellent source for quality programming.
The human voice an incredibly beautiful and expressive instrument, and when multiple voices are unified in tone and purpose a powerful statement is realized. No wonder people have always wanted to sing in a communal context-a desire apparently stemming from a deeply rooted human instinct. Consequently, choral performance has often been related historically to human rituals and ceremonies, especially rites of a religious nature. This Historical Dictionary of Choral Music examines choral music and practice in the Western world from the Medieval era to the 21st century, focusing mostly on familiar figures like Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Britten. But its scope is considerably broader, and it includes all sorts of music-religious, secular, and popular-from sources throughout the world. It contains a chronology, an introduction, a bibliography, and more than 1,000 cross-referenced dictionary entries on important composers, genres, conductors, institutions, styles, and technical terms of choral music.
Focus: Choral Music in Global Perspective introduces the little-known traditions and repertoires of the world’s choral diversity, from prison choirs in Thailand and gay and lesbian choruses of the Western world to community choruses in the Middle East and youth choirs in the United States. The book weaves together the stories of diverse individuals and organizations, examining their music and pedagogical practices while presenting the author’s research on how choral cultures around the world interact with societies and transform the lives of their members. Through an engaging series of portraits that pushes beyond the scope of extant texts and studies, the author explores the dynamic realm of world choral activity and repertoire. These personal portraits of musical communities are enriched by sample repertoire lists, performance details, and research findings that reposition a once Western phenomenon as a global concept. Focus: Choral Music in Global Perspective is an accessible, engaging, and provocative study of one of the world’s most ubiquitous and socially significant forms of music-making.