Is He Worthy?
By Christ Tomlin, arranged by Cliff Duren
This is a beautiful anthem, a song written by Chris Tomlin and arranged by Cliff Duren. I first encountered it while singing with my previous choir in 2019 (it was released in 2018). A review can be found here.
The sound quality was much better in the sanctuary than what you hear here. Our mixer is still out of commission (since the day before Christmas Eve) and we are limping along with a substitute.
I was in back running screens for this service, something I do every 3-4 weeks. That work appears here as the livestream lyric captions and the main screen lyric slides that occasionally show in the video. That means we were down to four altos; not enough! My back-row alto partner (we’re the tallest) was left all by herself again on that row, since the sopranos were also short a few and moved down.
It was a little challenging getting the slide timing right, with the way the phrases begin on a pickup. I can’t be looking at the music while I’m doing this, so I have to memorize when to make each transition as we practice. For all but the final practice and rehearsal I sing with my section even though I will be running screens, and from that I can feel when most of the turns should come.
There was a blank interlude slide missing at one spot, and I never thought to add it in — with all the other things we had going on during pre-service rehearsal — so one slide came in early; no damage done. I was there at 7:30 AM and still it was close, being ready for the countdown timer and service start at 9:52.
The hardest part for me, though, was staying focused on what I was doing. It is very easy to find yourself lost in this anthem!
Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, March 3, 2024
Excerpted from this livestream.
Something went wrong with the audio!!