This book offers an overview of issues related to the regulated, formal organization of sound and speech in verse intended for singing. Particularly, it is concerned with the structural properties and underlying mechanisms involved in the association of lyrics and music. While in spoken verse the underlying metrical scheme is grounded in the prosody of the language in which it is composed, in sung verse the structure is created by the mapping of specific prosodic units of the text (syllables, moras, tones, etc.) onto the rhythmic-melodic structure provided by the tune. Studying how this mapping procedure takes place across different musical genres and styles is valuable for what it can add to our knowledge of language and music in general, and also for what it can teach us about individual languages and poetic traditions. In terms of empirical coverage, the collection includes a wide variety of (Western) languages and metrical/musical forms, ranging from the Latin hexameter to the Norwegian stev, from the French chant courtois to the Sardinian mutetu longu. Readers interested in formal analyses of vocal music, or in metrics and linguistics, will find useful insights here.

In The Shofar, Jeremy Montagu offers a detailed study of the ram's horn of the Bible, describing its history and use-both ritual and secular-from biblical times to the present. Because the same person normally blows the shofar each year during the Jewish High Holy Days, few are aware of the wide differences among communities around the world: the varying points in the Jewish liturgical service when the shofar is blown, what sound combinations exist, and the many varieties of the instrument. This is the first work of its kind to detail the full range of historical, musical, antiquarian, and religious issues surrounding the ancient instrument with all relevant citations from the Bible, the Talmud, and key post-Talmudic sources. Jeremy Montagu carefully examines horn types, sound characteristics, liturgical uses, and community functions to illustrate how the shofar has reflected local custom, regional needs, and religious practice. Chapters provide difficult-to-find information on how shofars are made; advice on how to choose, prepare, and maintain shofars; and instructions for aspiring blowers on a variety of traditions. With more than sixty photographs from the author's personal collection, this is an ideal work for Jews and Christians, religious scholars and musicologists, and even practicing musicians seeking to understand the crucial role of this instrument in the life of a people.

The first investigation into the choral foundation of the Chapel Royal, Dublin Castle. The Chapel Royal, Dublin Castle, was the place of worship of the British monarch's representative in Ireland from 1814 until the inception of the Irish Free State in 1922. It was founded and maintained by the joint efforts of church and state, and thus its history provides valuable insights into how the relationship between religion and politics shaped Irish society and identity. The Dublin Chapel was established in imitation of the Chapel Royal of St James's Palace, London, and was served by a staff of clergy and musicians. Its musical foundation was a formal and independent entity, with its own personnel and performance traditions. Its distinctive repertoire included music from the English and Irish cathedral traditions, as well as works written by composers associated directly with the Chapel. This study investigates the Chapel's constitution, liturgy and music through an examination of previously unexplored primary material. Discussion of the circumstances of the Chapel's founding and its governance structures situates the institution in the context of the church-state relationship that existed following the Union of 1800. Further, by exploring architecture, churchmanship and musical style, O'Shea demonstrates how the Chapel was part of a wider aesthetic and liturgical tradition. The choral foundation is brought to life with accounts of the Chapel's clergy, organists, boy choristers and gentleman singers, which provide insights into Dublin's social history during a period of significant change. This book reflects on the Dublin Chapel Royal's legacy a century after its closure and offers a new perspective into a forgotten corner of Irish cultural, religious and political history.

For nearly eight centuries - from the Muslim conquest of Spain in 711 to the final expulsion of the Jews in 1492 - Muslims, Jews and Christians shared a common Andalusian culture under alternating Muslim and Christian rule. Following their expulsion, the Spanish and Arabic- speaking Jews joined pre-existing diasporic communities and established new ones across the Mediterranean and beyond. In the twentieth century, radical social and political upheavals in the former Ottoman and European-occupied territories led to the mass exodus of Jews from Turkey and the Arab Mediterranean, with the majority settling in Israel. Following a trajectory from medieval Al-Andalus to present-day Israel via North Africa, Italy, Turkey and Syria, pausing for perspectives from Enlightenment Europe, Musical Exodus: Al-Andalus and its Jewish Diasporas tells of diverse song and instrumental traditions born of the multiple musical encounters between Jews and their Muslim and Christian neighbors in different Mediterranean diasporas, and the revival and renewal of those traditions in present-day Israel. In this collection of essays from Philip V. Bohlman, Daniel Jutte, Tony Langlois, Piergabriele Mancuso, John O'Connell, Vanessa Paloma, Carmel Raz, Dwight Reynolds, Edwin Seroussi, and Jonathan Shannon, with opening and closing contributions by Ruth F. Davis and Stephen Blum, distinguished ethnomusicologists, cultural historians, linguists and performers explore from multidisciplinary perspectives the complex and diverse processes and conditions of intercultural and intracultural musical encounters. The authors consider how musical traditions acquired new functions and meanings in different social, political and diasporic contexts; explore the historical role of Jewish musicians as cultural intermediaries between the different faith communities; and examine how music is implicated in projects of remembering and forgetting as societies come to terms with mass exodus by reconstructing their narratives of the past. The essays in Musical Exodus: Al-Andalus and its Jewish Diasporas extend beyond the music of medieval Iberia and its Mediterranean Jewish diasporas to wider aspects of Jewish-Christian and Jewish-Muslim relations. The authors offer new perspectives on theories of musical interaction, hybridization, and the cultural meaning of musical expression in diasporic and minority communities. The essays address how music is implicated in constructions of ethnicity and nationhood and of myth and history, while also examining the resurgence of Al-Andalus as a symbol in musical projects that claim to promote cross-cultural understanding and peace. The diverse scholarship in Musical Exodus makes a vital contribution to scholars of music and European and Jewish history.

There can be no doubt as to the authenticity of BWV 143 as a genuine cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. While the originals are lost, there are second and third "generation" copies. This study considers all known facts since the work's composition in the 18th century and discusses in detail the criteria for judging the authenticity of the work.

There have been numerous publications in the last decades on the Bible in literature, film, and art. But until now, no reference work has yet appeared on the Bible as it appears in Western music. In The Bible in Music: A Dictionary of Songs, Works, and More, scholars Siobhan Dowling Long and John F. A. Sawyer correct this gap in Biblical reference literature, providing for the first time a convenient guide to musical interpretations of the Bible. Alongside examples of classical music from the Middle Ages through modern times, Dowling Long and Sawyer also bring attention to the Bible's impact on popular culture with numerous entries on hymns, spirituals, musicals, film music, and contemporary popular music. Each entry contains essential information about the original context of the work (date, composer, etc.) and, where relevant, its afterlife in literature, film, politics, and liturgy. It includes an index of biblical references and an index of biblical names, as well as a detailed timeline that brings to the fore key events, works, and publications, placing them in their historical context. There is also a bibliography, a glossary of technical terms, and an index of artists, authors, and composers. The Bible in Music will fascinate anyone familiar with the Bible, but it is also designed to encourage choirs, musicians, musicologists, lecturers, teachers, and students of music and religious education to discover and perform some less well-known pieces, as well as helping them to listen to familiar music with a fresh awareness of what it is about.

The scholar Robin A. Leaver holds a unique place in sacred music scholarship because of his training in both music and theology. He has written widely, bringing acute insights on a variety of musical repertories and topics related to Martin Luther, sixteenth-century psalmody, hymnody, and the sacred music of Johann Sebastian Bach. In Music and Theology, twelve scholars influenced by Leaver's work contribute essays in diverse areas of sacred music history and philosophy, focusing on the intersection of music and theology. Ranging chronologically from the twelfth-century writer and composer Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) to present-day considerations of American church music and worship, the volume provides thought-provoking new work for all who study church music. Reflecting the prominent emphasis in Leaver's own scholarship, eight chapters deal with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, including his organ music, sacred cantatas, and passion settings. A final chapter provides a chronological listing of Leaver's own voluminous writings on music and theology.

Urban God Talk: Constructing a Hip Hop Spirituality, edited by Andre Johnson, is a collection of essays that examine the religious and spiritual in hip hop. The contributors argue that the prevailing narrative that hip hop offers nothing in the way of religion and spirituality is false. From its beginning, hip hop has had a profound spirituality and advocates religious views-and while not orthodox or systemic, nevertheless, many in traditional orthodox religions would find the theological and spiritual underpinnings in hip hop comforting, empowering, and liberating. In addition, this volume demonstrates how scholars in different disciplines approach the study of hip hop, religion, and spirituality. Whether it is a close reading of a hip hop text, ethnography, a critical studies approach or even a mixed method approach, this study is a pedagogical tool for students and scholars in various disciplines to use and appropriate for their own research and understanding. Urban God Talk will inspire not only scholars to further their research, but will also encourage publishers to print more in this field. The contributors to this in-depth study show how this subject is an underrepresented area within hip hop studies, and that the field is broad enough for numerous monographs, edited works, and journal publications in the future.

Research on dubbing in audiovisual productions has been prolific in the past few decades, which has helped to expand our understanding of the history and impact of dubbing worldwide. Much of this work, however, has been concerned with the linguistic aspects of audiovisual productions, whereas studies emphasizing the importance of visual and acoustic dimensions are few and far between. Against this background, Dubbing, Film and Performance attempts to fill a gap in Audiovisual Translation (AVT) research by investigating dubbing from the point of view of film and sound studies. The author argues that dubbing ought to be viewed and analysed holistically in terms of its visual, acoustic and linguistic composition. The ultimate goal is to raise further awareness of the changes dubbing brings about by showing its impact on characterization. To this end, a tripartite model has been devised to investigate how visual, aural and linguistic elements combine to construct characters and their performance in the original productions and how these are deconstructed and reconstructed in translation through dubbing. To test the model, the author analyses extracts of the US television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its French dubbed version.

This is a welcome addition to recently published work on the popular musics which have emerged in many countries as a response to and as a result of the encounter of local musical traditions with Anglo-American pop/rock. . . . The empirical components make this an impressive book. . . . It is also quite unique. . . . The data collected is presented in a successful combination of quantitative information and 'windows' of text telling the story of different individual musicians, and tracing the influence on them of economics and politics, of local and foreign musicians. --Cambridge Journals "The book is a magnificent achievement and stands on par with the work by Wallis & Malm with which it inevitably must be compared. One looks forward to the companion volumes of the project. Of particular note is the research style that drew on 40 indigenous researchers from over 20 countries. This is a highly ambitious project in intercultural studies and stands as a landmark in intercultural cooperation." --Canadian Journal of Communication "Music at the Margins is the utopian experiment par excellence. . . . We are treated to an intriguing print montage of the current 'world music' landscape; this book's multicultural scholarship is a tour de force in cross-cultural dialogics. . . . The results of the studies help to set the agenda for further research in the field. . . . The book is an extremely ambitious project. . . . Music at the Margins . . . is a groundbreaking study of popular music in its international contexts. The book is a must for anyone interested in the subject." --Journal of Communication "Music at the Margins: Popular Music and Global Cultural Diversity fills an important scholarly gap by investigating the nature of the international recording industry and production of music by local performers working at the margins of that industry in a variety of national contexts. The authors report on cross-cultural research done by a large international team that "tests the cultural imperialism hypothesis" that a largely one-way flow of cultural texts is leading to worldwide cultural homogenization." --International Journal of Intercultural Relations "A very interesting, highly readable book about the global pop-music world, reflecting its complexity and its artistic, economic, cultural-social, and political involvement and influence. . . .Music at the Margins is a special book and will be relished by music fans, general readers, and students in music, sociology, economics and other courses." --Academic Library Book Review "One of the better books in the trend toward establishing legitimacy of popular culture studies through pseudoacademic trappings, this is a responsible attempt to collate and make sense of information and perceptions gleaned by researchers in more than 15 First-, Second-, and Third-World countries." --Choice "It inspires great respect for its authors. For someone who writes about popular music for a daily newspaper and magazines as well as academic settings, it has a lot of value and interest. The broad conceptual framework alone helps me think about what's happening with all aspects of pop culture, not just music. . . . Most important for me is the evidence the book provides of how the process of cultural production actually works at both individual and national levels." --Lynn Darroch, Mt. Hood Community College "An exhaustive academic account of the forces governing the international music industry. . . . Music at the Margins is an ambitious project encompassing many complex issues. . . . For anyone interested in the past, present and future of international popular music, it is an impressive and rewarding volume." --Tracking "An amazingly rich tour-de-force of contested territory: how meanings are negotiated between domination and diversity, cultural erosion and enrichment. Indispensable for students of mass media and popular culture, as well as of music." --George Gerbner, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania Popular music is a form of communication easily recognized and understood around the world. But as it spreads from culture to culture, is it becoming more homogenized? Or, conversely, is there a continuing and perhaps ever-increasing diversity of song styles and forms? Music at the Margins explores the debate surrounding popular music's spread, testing the more conventional "cultural imperialism" hypothesis as based on empirical findings from a study by the International Communication and Youth Culture Consortium. The primary focus is on how the process of popular music production is perceived by local musicians--people who are immersed in overlapping international, national, and local contexts of production. Discussions on theory, local case studies, and interview data are provided and integrated to show how societal influences are tempered by and interpreted through cultural and semiotic codes--as well as individual musicians' experiences and creative talents. Specific topics addressed include the rise of the international recording industry, music production in socialist or formerly socialist countries, censorship, and sociopolitical influences, to name but a few. Music at the Margins will appeal to a wide range of scholars and students in the fields of communication, popular culture, and sociology.

Unique yet diverse in its approach, The Crucifixion in Music examines how text is set in music through the specific musicological period from 1680 to 1800. The treatise focuses specifically on the literary text of the Crucifixus from the Credo of the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Mass. Combining analytical theory and method to address musical rhetoric, semiotics, and theory, author Jasmin Cameron follows the Crucifixion through many settings in Baroque and Classical music. In this first title in Scarecrow Press's new series, Contextual Bach Studies, Cameron studies musical representations of the text, first through a discussion that establishes a theoretical framework, then by applying the framework to individual case studies, such as Johann Sebastian Bach's B Minor Mass. By studying the musical representation of the text, and the concepts and contexts to which the words refer, Cameron examines the way the treatment of a literary text fuses into a recognizable musical tradition that composers can follow, develop, modify, or ignore. With equal time given to the settings of the Crucifixus by composers before and after Bach's time, the reader is provided with a fuller historical context for Bach's genius. Cameron also combines the beliefs of past theorists with those of today, reaching a common ground among them, and providing a basis and analytical framework for further study.

Study of musical manuscripts from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, opening a window on piety, liturgy and musical life in late medieval society. The musical culture of the Low Countries in the early modern period was a flourishing one, apparent beyond the big cathedrals and monasteries, and reaching down to smaller parish churches. Unfortunately, very few manuscripts containing the music have survived from the period, and what we know rests to a huge extent on six music books preserved from St Peter's Church, Leiden. This book describes the manuscripts, their provenance, history and repertory, and the zeven-getijdencollege, the ecclesiastical organisations which ordered the music books, in detail. These organisations have their roots in fifteenth-century piety, founded on the initiative of individuals and townadministrators throughout Holland, principally to ensure that prayers and Masses were said for those in the afterlife. Music, both chant and polyphony, played an important part in these commemorative practices; the volume also looks at the choristers and choirmasters, and how such services were organised. ERIC JAS is a lecturer in music at the university of Utrecht.

This book looks at the rich means of text interpretation in seventeenth and eighteenth century Polish music, a relatively unknown phenomenon. The works of old Polish masters exhibit many ingenious and beautiful solutions in musical oration, which will appeal to wide circles of lovers and experts of old music. One of the fundamental components of baroque musical poetics was music-rhetorical figures, which were the main means of shaping expression - the base and quintessence of musical rhetoric. It was by means of figures that composers built the musical interpretation of a verbal text, developing pictorial, emphatic, onomatopoeic, symbolic, and allegorical structures that rendered emotions and meanings carried by the verbal level of a musical piece.

In Singing in Greek: A Guide to Greek Lyric Diction and Vocal Repertoire, Lydia Zervanos reveals to singers the vast riches of Greek vocal music. Dating back to 1770, Greek art music-following the Western European styles, often drawing on themes from folk music and motifs-long awaits its rightful place in a truly international vocal repertoire. Modern singers in search of new musical opportunities will find in Singing in Greek the necessary tools to locate and perform art songs and arias from this extensive national vocal repertoire. Concisely written and full of practical advice, the book opens with an introduction to the Greek alphabet and pronunciation, navigating the assignment of International Phonetic Alphabet symbols. Zervanos covers such topics as Greek vowels, digraphs, consonants, binary consonants, consonant combinations, palatalization, basic Greek grammatical concepts and their role in stress and length, syllabification, and punctuation-all separated into easily referenced chapters and supported by online recordings of native Greek opera singers. In the second half of Singing in Greek, Zervanos offers a short history of Greek art music, biographies of prominent Greek composers, texts of their most representative works with IPA transcriptions, and word-for-word and poetic translations, with arias and art songs chosen for all voice types and levels. This book also includes indexes of direct vowel-to-IPA and consonant-to-IPA transcriptions, as well as useful appendixes on publications, organizations, and famous Greek poets. Singing in Greek is a must-have resource for every singer, voice teacher, vocal coach, collaborative pianist, and opera and choral conductor seeking to perform and teach in this unique language, explore the wealth of music available, and expand their knowledge of Greek repertoire.

Andrew Gant's compelling account traces English church music from Anglo-Saxon origins to the present. It is a history of the music and of the people who made, sang and listened to it. It shows the role church music has played in ordinary lives and how it reflects those lives back to us. The author considers why church music remains so popular and frequently tops the classical charts and why the BBC's Choral Evensong remains the longest-running radio series ever. He shows how England's church music follows the contours of its history and is the soundtrack of its changing politics and culture, from the mysteries of the Mass to the elegant decorum of the Restoration anthem, from stern Puritanism to Victorian bombast, and thence to the fractured worlds of the twentieth century as heard in the music of Vaughan Williams and Britten. This is a book for everyone interested in the history of English music, culture and society.

You need only minimal playing skills and three chords; G, C and D7 to accompany the beautiful songs of faith in this innovative book. If you are a beginning or "casual" player on a chording instrument, this is the book for you. The book is bursting with a great variety of timeless standards your entire family will enjoy. An outstanding collection of innovation arrangements made playable for folks who play for their own enjoyment. Melody and lyrics are included with all songs.
Guitar, ukulele and five-string banjo diagrams are included for the three chords along with tips on strumming. Transposing and use of capo tips are included for singers.

In early modern Europe, music - particularly singing - was the arena where body and soul came together, embodied in the notion of musica humana. Kim uses this concept to examine the framework within which music and song were used to promote moral education and addresses Renaissance ideas of religion, education and music.

for SATB, piano, and optional guitar, bass, and drum kit Samba Mass is a joyous and colourful setting of the Latin Missa brevis. The work is framed by the gentle bossa nova style of the warm Kyrie and relaxed Agnus Dei, which is prefaced by a funky Benedictus. The compelling rhythms of samba come to the fore in the second movement, a vivacious Gloria, which is followed by a beautiful Sanctus that offsets a steady flow of quavers with rhythmic syncopations. The stylistic piano part can be played as written or serve as a guide, and an optional guitar, bass, and drum kit part is available separately for band accompaniment. Performers will enjoy exploring the interplay between voices and the rich, warm colours of the samba and bossa nova styles. This work was originally commissioned in a version for upper voices by the New Orleans Children's Chorus, Cheryl Dupont, Director, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Crescent City Choral Festival, June 2019.

This sensitive study is a historical, cultural, and musical exploration of Christian religious music among the Logooli of Western Kenya. It describes how new musical styles developed through contact with popular radio and other media from abroad and became markers of the Logooli identity and culture. Jean Ngoya Kidula narrates this history of a community through music and religious expression in local, national, and global settings. The book is generously enhanced by audiovisual material on the Ethnomusicology Multimedia website.

This book represents the volume of the International Musicological Conference "Musical Romania and Neighbouring Cultures. Traditions, Influences, Identities", which took place in Iasi (Romania) and was organised by the George Enescu University of Arts Iasi in collaboration with the International Musicological Society. The volume includes 35 papers of 38 authors who represent academic centres in Croatia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Romania. The diverse topics include ancient Romanian, Balkan or East-European music, music iconography, Byzantine and folkloristic traditions, as well as modern and contemporary music. The articles propose theoretical and methodological documentation on the interactions between liturgical, folkloric and academic works within this multicultural space.

During the Reformation, the Book of Psalms became one of the most well-known books of the Bible. This was particularly true in Britain, where people of all ages, social classes and educational abilities memorized and sang poetic versifications of the psalms. Those written by Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins became the most popular, and the simple tunes developed and used by English and Scottish churches to accompany these texts were carried by soldiers, sailors and colonists throughout the English-speaking world. Among these tunes were a number that are still used today, including 'Old Hundredth', 'Martyrs', and 'French'. This book is the first to consider both English and Scottish metrical psalmody, comparing the two traditions in print and practice. It combines theological literary and musical analysis to reveal new and ground-breaking connections between the psalm texts and their tunes, which it traces in the English and Scottish psalters printed through 1640. Using this new analysis in combination with a more thorough evaluation of extant church records, Duguid contends that Britain developed and maintained two distinct psalm cultures, one in England and the other in Scotland.

Geistliche Lieder und Psalmen, 1567, was compiled and published by Johann Leisentrit, a Roman Catholic priest who from 1559 to the time of his death in 1586, was Dean at the Cathedral of St. Peter's in Bautzen, a town in southeastern Germany. His hymnbook appeared in three complete editions (1567, 1573, 1584), and in abridged editions in 1575, 1576, and 1589. By adapting the vernacular hymn, a genre created by Protestant reformers, Leisentrit hoped to bring back to the "true church" (wahrglaubiger Christlicher Kirchen) those who had defected to Lutheranism. This was a formidable ambition because his diocese was located adjacent to the Moravian-Bohemian regions where the Protestant movement was born and remained vital. Containing approximately 260 texts set to 175 notated melodies, many borrowed from Protestant sources and adapted to serve Roman Catholic objectives, Leisentrit's book was the second Catholic hymnbook to be published in the sixteenth century. It surpassed its Protestant and Catholic precursors in scope and provided a model for the profusion of hymnbooks of numerous confessions that appeared in Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries . Wetzel and Heitmeyer present their study in two parts: The first comprises six contextual chapters that survey earlier German achievements in hymnody, provide analyses of the texts and music in Leisentrit's book, and assess his achievement within the volatile environment of the Counter Reformation. The second gives the melodies in modern notation along with the first stanzas of the texts; provides detailed concordances and references to sources that identify textual and musical provenances; and concludes with six appendixes to facilitate scholarly cross-references. Fourteen of the seventy wood engravings from Leisentrit's book, many of which are visual representations of the prevailing confessional conflicts, are given in enlarged reproductions. The authors provide the only comprehensive study in English of a unique religious figure and his efforts to achieve confessional reconciliation in the decades following the Council of Trent. They add to a more accurate interpretation of the relationship between Lutherans and Catholics in the sixteenth century and support the hypothesis that some Lutherans remained more liturgically formal than their Catholic contemporaries.

The book defines and describes the relationships between Chopin's music and one of the oldest but still used monastic rules, the Rule of Saint Benedict. Its goal is to construct bridges between music and spirituality. Since these two realms both refer to human life, the chapters of the book deal with current and existential issues such as beginnings, authority, weakness, interactions, emotions and others. The Rule of Saint Benedict and Chopin's music appear to belong to the same stylistic category of human culture, characterized by nobleness, moderation and high sensibility. In this way two seemingly incompatible realities reveal their affinity to each other, and the one may explain the other. The book is situated at the boundary of musicology and theology. Its discourse is illustrated by many examples, carefully chosen from Chopin's music.

This book is a study of music inculturation in Indonesia. It shows how religious expression can be made relevant in an indigenous context and how grassroots Christianity is being realized by means of music. Through the discussion of indigenous expressions of Christianity, the book presents multiple ways in which Indonesians reiterate their identity through music by creatively forging Christian and indigenous elements. This study moves beyond the discussion (and charge) of syncretism, showing that the inclusion of local cultural manifestations is an answer to creating a truly indigenous Christian expression. Marzanna Poplawska, while telling the story of Indonesian Christians and the multiple ways in which they live Christianity through music, emphasizes the creative energy and agency of local people. In their practices she finds optimism for the continuing existence of many traditional genres and styles. Indonesian Christians perform their Christian faith through music, dance, and theater, generating innovative cultural products that enrich the global Christian heritage. The book is addressed to a broad spectrum of readers: scholars from a variety of disciplines - music, religion, anthropology, especially those interested in interactions between Christianity and indigenous cultures; general music lovers and World Music enthusiasts eager to discover musics outside of European realm; as well as Christian believers, church musicians, and choir directors curious to learn about Christian music beyond Euro-American context. Students of religion, sacred music, (ethno)musicology, theater, and dance will also benefit from learning about a variety of indigenous arts employed in Christian churches in Indonesia.

In Choral Masterpieces: Major and Minor, historian Nicholas Tarling surveys the landscape of choral works, some standard masterpieces that are commonly performed by choruses around the world, others deserving a second, closer look. As noted in the foreword by Uwe Grodd , music director of the Auckland Choral Society, this work "is a collection of essays about a number of outstanding works, including Beethoven's Miss Solemnis and Britten's War Requiem, but he also invites attention to lesser masterpieces. If the choral movement, which includes both singers and listeners, is to survive, new works must be created and repertory expanded. The book is an easy and captivating read even if you are not a chorister." Choral Masterpieces: Major and Minor features short essays on over 28 works, from major masterpieces such as Handel's Messiah and Bach's St. Matthew's Passion to off-the-beaten path choral works such as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Hiawatha and Frederick Delius' A Mass of Life. Throughout, Tarling offers assessments that sparkle with unique insights and at the same time ground listener's in the historical contexts of the work's production and performance. Each work is transformed in Tarling's able hands from musical work into a window into the mind and milieu of the composer. Choral Masterpieces: Major and Minor mixes choral mainstays with works that demand revisiting. Choral singers and their audiences, as well as choral societies and their directions and promoters, will find ample food for thoughts in these meditations on the choral tradition.