Journal issue: Vol. 4, No. 1
Introducing Vol. 4, No. 1 of the Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter
The eighth issue of the Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter features the experiences of singing school teachers and students (young and old, on both sides of the Atlantic), shares a new documentary on Sacred Harp in Ireland, and commemorates the contributions of William J. Reynolds to our songbook. The issue opens with Jesse P. Karlsberg’s…
Old Strings on a New Harp
On Valentine’s Day, 2015, over one hundred people gathered at Cannon Chapel on the Emory University campus in Atlanta, Georgia, to celebrate the publication of the new Centennial Edition of Joseph Stephen James’s Original Sacred Harp, the 1911 precursor of our own 1991 Edition. The event brought together singers from Georgia, Alabama, and further afield,…
Fasola Kids: Camp for a Recently Forged Singing Family
We begin below with a little bit of what the Youth Emphasis session of Camp Fasola 2014 meant to our kids, F. (9) and C. (7), in their own words. After their account, we offer some thoughts on our experience of camp and how we’ve come to be a fasola family over the past few…
A Long Time Traveling: A Sacred Harp Tour to the UK Convention, Camp Fasola Europe, and the Poland Convention
Fourteen eager travelers met at the Atlanta Airport on Thursday, September 18, 2014, to begin a thirteen-day adventure that included the nineteenth annual UK Sacred Harp Convention, the second Camp Fasola Europe, and the third annual Poland Sacred Harp Convention. The travelers included David and Karen Ivey, trip hosts and camp instructors from Huntsville, Alabama,…
Traveling South (South Germany, That Is): Introducing Sacred Harp in a One-day Workshop
Although singers in Germany have been traveling between Frankfurt, Bremen, and Hamburg for some time now, the first opportunity to venture further south was presented to us in the autumn of 2014, when Andreas Ebert, director of the St. Martin Christian Spiritual Center in Munich, invited us to give the first Sacred Harp workshop in…
Documenting Cork’s Sacred Harp Community
I first heard of Sacred Harp singing in Cork about four years ago. I’m not sure how or where. I had a very vague awareness of shape-note singing, but more how the shape-notes worked than what it sounded like. I remember around late 2011 or early 2012 a group of Cork singers came to Limerick…
Honoring William J. Reynolds, A Behind the Scenes Contributor to the 1991 Edition
The Sacred Harp Publishing Company presented a citation award honoring the contributions of William J. Reynolds to Sacred Harp singing on January 31, 2015 at the William J. Reynolds Sacred Harp Singing in Fort Worth, Texas. Bill Reynolds became the eighty-seventh recipient of the citation, given since 1969 to “honor and express appreciation to loyal…
You Are My Sunshine
I was recently reflecting (as many of us have) on my ten-year singing anniversary. The first all-day singing I attended was the William Walker Memorial at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The singing uses two books: The Sacred Harp and Walker’s Christian Harmony. Not knowing what to expect, I guess I should have been…
The Advancement of Sacred Harp Music
Introduction An exceptional singer and unparalleled supporter of Sacred Harp, Ruth Denson Edwards was also one of the most eloquent chroniclers of the music and its community. Singers today who were not fortunate enough to have known her might recognize her thoughtful, polished voice from the preface titled “Music” that introduces The Sacred Harp, 1991 Edition.…