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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“’Twas on a Sunday Morning,” a solo from composer Evelyn Larter, is perfect for Easter Sunday or Eastertide. Augsburg Fortress will be releasing a collection of vocal solos from Larter next year, but in the meantime we have made this manuscript available for free in the hopes that churches will find it useful when many congregations are unable to assemble in person. Permission is granted by the composer and Augsburg fortress to reproduce this piece for worship through August of 2020.

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My last in-person rehearsal with my two youth choirs at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church was Wednesday, March 11. I did not know until the following day, however, that it would be the last time I’d see those singers for the foreseeable future. When I found out, my heart sank. Our youth choir program has been a thriving and committed community within our congregation for over 20 years. Friendships among children and their parents have taken root over Wednesday night meals at church and after-choir games of tag out on the lawn, and lifelong singers have been nurtured. I’ve always felt that this ministry is as much about building relationships as it is about making music. Faced with the dire predictions about the pandemic, I knew that it would be important to help us all maintain some sense of connection and continuity during this uncertain time. I wanted to make sure the children could still see their friends. I wanted to keep them singing. And I was already mourning the loss of the joy they bring to my life. I needed them as much as I hope they needed me.

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When someone asks me about the benefits of intergenerational choral experiences in the church, I think of Thomas, a college student majoring in music. Throughout his childhood and youth, he benefited from a variety of musical experiences at church, including singing in the children’s and youth choirs, and, as he grew, performing as an instrumentalist. He also participated in intergenerational choirs several times per year. As a child, he heard harmony around him for the first time. When his voice changed, he gained vocal confidence because he was able to sit among strong, adult male voices. Because the combination of choirs meant increased numbers of singers and the vocal security that brings, the anthem could be a bit more musically challenging.

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