World magazine, in its current issue, has a sidebar about two a cappella music CDs. What so amazing to me is that these are by Mennonite (or mostly Mennonite) youth (or mostly youth). Also amazing is that these are the kind of Mennonites that practice the Christian woman’s headship covering. Most amazing of all, though, is this: our son Andrew is a tenor in the Acclamation Chorale. That’s just pretty special. 🙂
Here’s what Arzenio Orteza has to say in his World sidebar:
ENCORE
Judging from their photos, the members of the 40-voice Oasis Chorale (Mennonite) and the 36-voice Acclamation Chorale (non- or interdenominational) are either relatively or downright youthful. And, as anyone who has ever been young can attest, where there’s youth there’s fire. Both ensembles have new albums, each of which fans or at least tends the flame of the North American sacred a cappella choral tradition.
The Acclamation Chorale’s I’m Gonna Sing features Negro spirituals in arrangements by the late Moses Hogan. More impressive than the attention to rhythmic detail that propels the majority of the performances is the attention to dynamic detail that imparts an aural nimbus to “Abide with Me” and “Amen.” The Oasis Chorale’s Eternal Mercies presents a more eclectic program, ranging from the incandescent (“Alleluia Incantation,” “Even When He Is Silent”) to the incandescently exotic (the Xhosa-language “Ndikhokhele Bawo”). A telling coincidence: Both albums contain Hogan’s vigorous arrangement of “I Can Tell the World.”
If you’re into buying stuff on Amazon, here you go:
Oh, and our son missed being in the World photo by a degree or two to the right. 😀 In fact, he might have been holding the book — and now you know what the faint tan arrow is about in the screen capture above. 😀
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