What’s this?
It’s a section of this Substack containing an archive of videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. I expect this to be the final post, as explained below. A longer description can be found on the About page.
O Rest in the Lord
From the publisher’s page:
Based on Psalm 37 and composed by Ken Medema. Pastoral feeling with classical overtones. Sensitively set with warmth in both the voices and accompaniment. Moderately easy SATB voicing, especially appropriate as a choral response after prayer.
This piece was a “quick learn” for our choir. I am a little surprised, however, at the statement above about “moderately easy SATB voicing“. It’s not a difficult piece, unless you have little time to learn it before singing it. We had little time, and quite a few choir members were not able to attend the the final weeknight rehearsal for it, which made for an “interesting” pre-service run-through. The difficulties were similar to those we encountered last week. We did however have our six altos (my section) when it came time to sing, and the six of us came through clearly in the recording.
I like the way this anthem turned out well enough to include it as my almost-final offering here (more below). Like last week’s anthem, we goofed in a place or two, but I still hear it playing in my head, and it is welcome to keep on doing that, goof free.
Behind the Scenes
I wasn’t expecting to be posting any more anthems after this one. This was our last Sunday before the choir breaks until September, and I don’t plan to continue with choir on a regular basis when they resume. There was, however, a special opportunity for the sopranos and the altos to sing an offertory anthem on August 31st, and I took part in that. The final post now is this one.
Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, May 18, 2025.
Excerpted from this livestream.