Roundup: Sing Me High Music Festival, visual LP shot on Mayne Island, and more

Victoria Emily Jones

Aug 3

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST: August 2023: Here's this month's!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5gzdSN8Ld0RIJ5Aq6SHTMG?si=b41a086f02ad4faf

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MUSIC FESTIVAL: "Sing Me High," August 11–12, 2023: Celebrating music and faith in the Shenandoah Valley. Next Friday evening and all day Saturday at the Brethren & Mennonite Heritage Center in Harrisonburg, Virginia, various folk, bluegrass, and acoustic musicians from the region will be performing: the Walking Roots Band [previously], Chatham Rabbits, Maya de Vitry, Spectator Bird, Honeytown, Juniper Tree, Tide Spring, Good Company, Ebony Nicole, Ears to the Ground Family (read my review of their debut album), Shekinah, Ryan Scarberry, Clymer & Kurtz, and the Rain Pickers. Buy your tickets ahead or at the gate. I'll be there! (In the audience, that is.)

Below are songs by three different bands/artists who will be playing at the festival: "Praise to God (Whirlwinds)," a new setting by the Walking Roots Band of an eighteenth-century hymn by Anna Barbauld (recorded on The Soil and The Seed Project, vol. 4 and appearing on the Art & Theology Thanksgiving Playlist); "Again, Amen" by Spectator Bird (sisters Rachel and Lindsey FitzGerald); and "Grieve and Rejoice" by Ryan Scarberry, director of music at Incarnation Anglican Church in Williamsburg, Virginia.

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ONLINE EVENT: "In Memoriam: An Evening Celebrating Frederick Buechner's Literary Contributions," August 15, 2023: "Celebrated as one of the foremost spiritual writers of his generation, Frederick Buechner's witty, vivid, and rich writing has inspired readers' minds and stirred hearts through his more than 30 published books for six decades. One year after his passing, Frederick Buechner (July 11, 1926–August 15, 2022) remains an influential voice for writers across genres, from novelists and memoirists to homileticians and theologians alike. For those writers who feel not religious enough for religious readers, or too religious for non-religious readers, Buechner's voice has been a welcome, guiding light.

"On the one-year-anniversary of Frederick Buechner's passing, Image is hosting space for community members to gather and share their appreciation for Buechner's literary contributions. From themes of paying attention to one's life and stewarding one's grief, to the unexpected influences on one's vocation and the ordinary miraculous moments of everyday life, Buechner's words offer a variety of invitations through which one might come to see the world and one's place within it more deeply. Image community members are invited to bring a favorite selection of Buechner's writing to read aloud and to briefly reflect on the difference his words have made for their life." Register for this free, moderated, open-mic-style time of sharing and reflections at the link above.

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DOCUMENTARY: The Sea in Between (2013) by Mason Jar Music: Blayne Johnson and his family, who reside in Mayne Island, British Columbia, are big fans of Portland, Oregon-based indie singer-songwriter Josh Garrels. In 2012 Johnson reached out to Garrels and some of the folks at Mason Jar Music, the Brooklyn-based creative collective Garrels has worked with, to invite them up to his home for a relaxing getaway, and to play for his family and neighbors. Mason Jar specializes in live performance videos, so they sent a small crew and a handful of musicians with the intention of shooting a few of those at various locations around the island—along the bay, on a farm, in a church. Then they decided to extend the footage from the week into a feature-length documentary, directed by Matt Porter, which you can watch for free on YouTube (embedded directly below). The song recordings were released afterward on an album of the same name, along with others that didn't make the final cut of the film.

The Sea in Between, the film, is about vocation, the creative process, patronage, faith, family, community, and the beauty of place, and it centers on the joy of making and experiencing music together. Besides Garrels, the musicians are Dan Knobler (slide guitar, mandolin), Jay Kirkpatrick (banjo, accordion), Russell Durham (violin), Charlaine Prescott (cello), Jason Burger (drums), Chad Lefkowitz-Brown (clarinet, flute, saxophone), and Gabriel Gall (miscellaneous), who served as music director and wrote the orchestrations. Michelle Garrels and Matt Porter play the aquarion (glass marimba), and everyone contributes vocals. Perhaps my favorite song from the film is "Pilot Me" (not to be confused with the Edward Hopper hymn "Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me"; this is a Garrels original):

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SONG: "O nata lux" by Thomas Tallis, performed by VOCES8: "O nata lux de lumine" (O Light Born of Light) is the office hymn at Lauds of the Feast of the Transfiguration, celebrated August 6. Here VOCES8 performs a setting from the English High Renaissance by Thomas Tallis, inside St. Bartholomäus-Kirche in Pegnitz, Germany.

O nata lux de lumine,  Jesu redemptor saeculi,  Dignare clemens supplicum  Laudes precesque sumere.    Qui carne quondam contegi  Dignatus es pro perditis,  Nos membra confer effici  Tui beati corporis.

O Light born of Light,  Jesus, redeemer of the world,  with loving-kindness deign to receive  suppliant praise and prayer.    Thou who once deigned to be clothed in flesh  for the sake of the lost,  grant us to be members  of thy blessed body.