Christmas Musicals for Church
Issue link: http://read.jwpepper.com/i/529578
THE SILENCE AND THE SOUND - SATB PERFORMANCE NOTES This (approximately) 45-minute work includes the following elements: • SATB choir • Children's chorus (or optional child solo) • Several soloists • Two adult narrators • Two child readers (optional) Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence This piece has small narrations throughout the song. The same narrator should read all of the narration in this piece. Please refer to the score for narrator entrances. Come To Us This piece begins with a child soloist (recommended), but you may wish to use an adult female instead. Luke 2 This is the traditional reading of the Christmas story, underscored by piano (or orchestra) and the adult choir. Having two children reading the story would be a special touch, but two adults would work just as well. You could even use the two adult narrators, or possibly even just one reader. How do you write a cantata about the greatest event in history? How do you capture the awesomeness of Redemption in 45 minutes of human vocabulary? How do you make fresh and new something that has been told a million times before? I carried the weight of these questions while writing The Silence and the Sound. I remember sitting in a hotel room in July, looking through Christmas music (we're all church musicians here ! that comment makes perfect sense to us all!), and I read through the ancient carol "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence." I think that was probably the first time I had really read and absorbed the text. The impact of the opening lyrics took my breath away, and the magnitude of Christmas became almost tangible to me. That moment became the springboard for this cantata, and that carol became the anchor. And so now, I'm "passing the torch" to your choir: may you experience and communicate the awe of silence, the humility of Redemption, and the shout of joy during this Christmas season. Merry Christmas! ! Heather Sorenson FOREWORD 2