Update of 1844 Sacred Harp songbook reflects new generation of singers : NPR

Australian Australian’s musicologist Australia directs the song she made up for the new edition of The sacred harp“Radiance”, in the center of the hollow square.

Lucy Grindon

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Lucy Grindon

Atlanta – More than 700 singers gathered in Atlanta this month to celebrate the last edition of the song of songs in the heart of one of the oldest Christian musical traditions in the country.

The sacred harpPublished for the first time in 1844, contains hymns and hymns written with “form notes”, designed to help read the visions. Unlike standard musical notation, each note is a triangle, a circle, a square or a diamond. Each form represents a syllable, fa, soil, or mi, and each syllable corresponds to different heights.

“Radiance”, composed by Angharad Davis of Australia, is on page 488 of the new book of songs.

Lucy Grindon

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Lucy Grindon

The convention was the largest sacred harp singing in living memory and culminated seven years of work to revise the book. Hundreds have traveled long distances to sing the 113 new songs.

“It is the only time in most of our lives that we will see a rally like this,” said composer Angharad Davis of Sydney, Australia.

Leigh Cooper de San Francisco gives a whole new edition in 2025 of The sacred harp to a singer of the book sales table just inside the entry of the agreement.

Lucy Grindon

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Lucy Grindon

Sacred Harp is centered in the South American, but the singers came from 35 American states, three Canadian provinces, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany. They sang in tenor, triple, alto and bass sections, without instruments. The so-called “sacred harp” is the human voice itself, said Alto Lucy O’Leary.

All songs express Christian faith, with mortality as a leading theme. “Hallelujah” uses words of 1759: “and that this weak body fails, / and let it vanish or die; / My soul must leave this valid hilly, / and hover in the worlds at the top.”

No name controls the sacred harp. Baptists, quakers, Catholics, episcopalians, mennonites, atheists and others sing together, and all are welcome.

For almost two centuries, each new generation has updated the book, which now includes songs of 49 living composers. (Before the last revision, this number had decreased to five.)

But the vitality of the tradition did not feel as safe when the last revision was made in 1991.

Judy Hauff, who composed four songs in the book, discovered Sacred Harp in the mid-80s. At the time, almost all singers had gray hair, she told the Convention.

“I would stay there to listen to the roar of these elderly people and to think:” What would it have looked like when they were in their twenties and the thirties and the forties? “” Said Hauff.

At the time, she thought she would never discover him.

“We never dreamed that we see people like that,” said Hauff through tears, making a gesture towards the crowd. He included hundreds of singers under the age of 50 – with black, brown, blond and even purple hair – alongside the ancients.

Lauren Bock of Atlanta, who composed three songs in the new book and sat on the revision committee for nine people, said that the increase in young singers was partly attributable to the 2003 film Cold mountainwhich presented a sacred harp and on Youtube.

While the singer swimming pool moves younger, it also contains more people of color, LGBTQ + people and non -religious people.

The new composers of the book reflect this. José Camacho-Cerna de Valdosta, in Georgia, the first Latin composer in the book, is 27 years old.

“I was in a punk group, I know it’s a bit crazy. It’s something that attracted me to me [Sacred Harp]I just thought it was very metal. The metal of the 1800s, “he said.

Camacho-Cerna is also committed to marry a man, and he is one of the first composers openly LGBTQ +.

José Camacho-Cerna of Valdosta, in Georgia, directs the song he composed for the new edition of The sacred harp“Lowndes”, in the center of the hollow square.

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He grew up in a Pentecostal church which did not accept LGBTQ +people, and he was surprised to meet so many people during his first songs at the age of 19. Finally, he said, he started to think that sacred harp people cared only about music, not sexual orientations of other singers. It gave him the courage to go out.

“Sacred Harp was a great push for me to say ‘ok, let’s say the dressing. I can be who I want to be-who I am, and let’s stop hiding,” he said.

The composers led their own songs to the Convention, standing in the middle of the singers’ square and by beating their arms from top to bottom to keep time. Camacho-Cerna composed his song, “Lowndes”, after the death of his grandfather in Honduras. To hear him “in all his glory” for the first time “changed life,” he said.

“Without trying to be weird, I could die happy,” he said. “Knowing that I have an inheritance, do you know?”

Deidra Montgomery of Providence, Rhode Island, the first black composer added to the book, began to work on their song, “Mechanicville”, in 2010.

“Direct my song in a giant class of singers, turning to bring the different sections of the fugue and see all these people I had met in different phases of my time as a singer was euphoric,” said Montgomery.

Micah Walter dedicates his “Revere” composition for a singer colleague.

Lucy Grindon

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Lucy Grindon

During the recesses, the singers approached composers for autographs.

The diversification of the list of composers was not an explicit objective for the new book, said Bock. In fact, she and her colleagues member of the revision committee analyzed songs without knowing their paternity. The new composers simply reflect the current community, she said.

“People who have submitted songs are people who sing in the world,” said Bock. “They are quite clearly different even of which sang in 1991.”

On the second day of singing, the daughter of Bock, Lucey Karlsberg, 8, led “Hallelujah” with other children.

Jesse Karlsberg leads a piece of sacred harp on the grave of Benjamin Franklin White, who compiled the original edition of 1844 of The sacred harpAt the historic Oakland cemetery in Atlanta.

Lucy Grindon

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Lucy Grindon

Later, Karlsberg sang with others at the grave of Benjamin Franklin White, who compiled the original song of songs. When the next revision is released, Karlsberg will probably be in his forties. When asked if she wanted to contribute a song, she had no doubt. “I will Do it! “She cried.