Hello and welcome to the show. I’m your host, Amanda Bruce.
Before we get into the main content of our podcast today, I wanted to remind you of the upcoming feast day for Saint Cecilia, patron saint of music.
This year, NPM celebrates the patron saint of music as an opportunity to pray and reflect. We're calling it Saint Cecilia Day.
The NPM National office is providing a free resource for ALL pastoral musicians...
...non-NPM members
...cantors
...choir members
...ensemble members
...to reflect & pray on November 22nd, the feast of St. Cecilia.
This free, guided prayer resource can be found at npm.org. We encourage you to download it and forward it to anyone whom you think would benefit from it as we celebrate the Feast of St. Cecilia this Friday.
And now, back to your regularly scheduled content!
When we think of pastoral music composers, we think of David Haas. Marty Haugen. Dan Schutte. Tony Alonso. Jesse Manibusan. Ed Bolduc. Steve Angrisano. The list of well-known composers goes on and on. They are names that we see on our choral octavos, or on the composer’s credits of our hymns each week. In a way, we create this cultural divide between those who compose and those who take their songs into the churches for ministry. I’ve heard people say, “I can’t do what these ‘big name’ composers do.” And yet they arrange choral works for their choir, or write their own psalm setting to match the musical needs of their parish.
Some of us might feel a tugging on our hearts to compose, writing down a scripture verse or little segment of a melody that we keep thinking about. But how do we act upon that call? Even more, what if we don’t see ourselves as composers, and stop ourselves before we even put pen to paper?
As a pastoral musician, composing sacred music may seem daunting. Today David Kauffman and I discuss how to honor that call from the Spirit, and how any pastoral musician can grow such gifts.
To provide some context before we begin, David Kauffman is a composer and creator of Good For the Soul Music, a sacred music company based out of Texas. David, along with Bill Gokelman, composed the “Mass of Renewal”, which won NPM’s national contest to vote for the best new or revised Mass setting in light of the Roman Missal changes implemented in 2010. The membership voted, and their “Mass of Renewal” was chosen.
David joins us today from San Antonio, Texas.
SHOW NOTES
Your “Formation Going Forth” for the week (“The Liturgical Composer’s Toolkit”) can be found using these directions:
Go to npm.org and select “log in” on the upper right hand part of the screen.
Log into the NPM Digital Resources (Members only) and select “From the Convention”.
Choose “Convention Breakouts”, and scroll down until you find “The Liturgical Composer’s Toolkit”.
For more information about David Kauffman and Good For the Soul Music, visit his website at www.goodforthesoulmusic.com.
Recordings of other choirs singing David’s music can be found on YouTube here:
Be Still (sung by the St. Mary’s University Chapel Choir, San Antonio, TX)
Behold (sung with the St. Anthony Church Choir)
Visit NPM's digital resource library, referenced at the end of the episode.
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