Sometimes you fall in love with a hymn the very first time you hear it. “In Sacred Manner” by Susan Palo Cherwien is one of those for me. It’s included in All Creation Sings, the supplement to Evangelical Lutheran Worship coming in November 2020, and one reason I’m so struck by this text is that it suggests our relationship with creation should include learning from nature, not just inviting creation to join our song.

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This music goes well with the lectionary texts for Sunday, August 30, and does not require a choir: 

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The following music pairs well with the lectionary texts for Sunday, August 23, and does not require a choir or other large ensemble: 

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This music resonates with the lectionary texts for Sunday, August 16, and can be done without a choir or other large ensemble: 

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The following music goes well with the lectionary readings for Sunday, August 9, 2020, and does not require a choir: 

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During the virtual music clinic that Augsburg Fortress hosted last month, clinician Christopher Aspaas mentioned two websites. The first was this slide deck presenting preliminary findings of an aerosol study of a singer and various instrumentalists. The study examined the aerosols emitted while the singer talked and sang and while the instrumentalists played their instruments, including a clarinet, a horn, a flute, and a trumpet. Findings and recommendations included a confirmation of the need to wear a mask at all possible times, especially while speaking or singing, and the need to ensure that each musician is at least six feet away in every direction from any other person.  

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Editor’s note: We asked Chad Fothergill, author of the recent Worship Matters handbook Sing with All the People of God, to write about how the book might still be useful given recent guidance surrounding group singing. This is what he wrote. This post also appears on the Prelude Music Planner Blog.

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This is a challenging time to work in church music. Choir plans have been scuttled as a result of public health guidelines and we are working with new methods of connecting with one another. Many are streaming music from home as part of online worship services. To assist with this, Augsburg Fortress is extending through July 31, 2020, its temporary permission for worshiping communities to include Augsburg Fortress administered liturgical text and liturgical music copyrights in a livestream or podcast. Read more about this in our landing page.

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Our worship video for Easter Sunday included a sound track of our youth choirs singing Mark Patterson’s “Alleluia, Christ is Risen!” Even in the midst of a global pandemic without regular rehearsals, we offered our gift of song, and the bonus was that we had silent video footage of the children singing it from our last Zoom rehearsal! Thanks to some previous experience using Audacity to create recordings for Honor Choir auditions, I knew that I could create one recording featuring our current singers. Parents received a practice recording from me shortly after we began virtual rehearsals. In the week leading up to Easter, I invited my young friends to send an MP3 recording of themselves singing along with me. It required about a day and a half of mixing, editing, and syncing, but it turned out amazingly well. It was a special gift of hope for our congregation to hear the children and youth sing, and also to witness how staying connected virtually these past several weeks prepared them to accomplish it.

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We’ve made it through Holy Week, the fourth week that we’ve all been sheltering at home here in Minnesota. I’ve had four Zoom rehearsals with my youth choirs and am learning a lot about the benefits and challenges of using the Zoom platform with my singers.

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