A "contemplative" ethnographic study of a Benedictine monastery in Vermont known for its folk-inspired music. Far from being a long-silent echo of medieval religion, modern monastery music is instead a resounding, living illustration of the role of music in religious life. Benedictine monks gather for communal prayer upwards of five times per day, every day. Their prayers, called the Divine Office, are almost entirely sung. Benedictines are famous for Gregorian Chant, but the original folk-inspired music of the monks of Weston Priory in Vermont is among the most familiar in post-Vatican II American Catholicism. Using the ethnomusicological methods of fieldwork and taking inspiration from the monks' own way of encountering the world, this book offers a contemplative engagement with music, prayer, and everyday life. The rich narrative evokes the rhythms of learning among Benedictines to show how monastic ways of being, knowing, and musicking resonate with humanistic inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. Support for this publication was provided by the Howard Hanson Institute for American Music of the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester.

Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most unfathomable composers in the history of music. How can such sublime work have been produced by a man who seems so ordinary, so opaque - and occasionally so intemperate? In this remarkable book, John Eliot Gardiner distils the fruits of a lifetime's immersion as one of Bach's greatest living interpreters. Explaining in wonderful detail how Bach worked and how his music achieves its effects, he also takes us as deeply into Bach's works and mind as perhaps words can. The result is a unique book about one of the greatest of all creative artists.

The most popular and powerful praise songs are represented in this outstanding collection The piano arrangements closely follow what's played on each song's iconic original recording, giving the pianist an authentic experience while providing a true accompaniment to sing along to. Whether in church, at a ceremony or by living room piano, this book offers wonderful songs to inspire yourself and others. Basic guitar chord grids are included for optional guitar accompaniment. Titles: Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) * Blessings * 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) * God's Not Dead (Like a Lion) * How Beautiful * How Great Is Our God * How He Loves * I Can Only Imagine * In Christ Alone (My Hope Is Found) * Shout to the Lord * Mighty to Save * Need You Now (How Many Times) * One Thing Remains (Your Love Never Fails) * The Prayer * Revelation Song * You Raise Me Up.

The venerable Dixie Hummingbirds stand at the top of the black gospel music pantheon as artists who not only significantly shaped that genre but, in the process, also profoundly influenced emerging American pop music genres from Rhythm & Blues and Doo-Wop to Rock 'n' Roll, Soul, and Hip-Hop. Great God A'Mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds shows how, in a career spanning more than nine decades, they pointed the way from pure a cappella harmony to guitar-driven soul to pop-stardom crossover, collaborating with artists like Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon along the way. Drawing on interviews with founding and quintessential members as well as many of the pop luminaries influenced by the Hummingbirds, author Jerry Zolten tells their story from rising up and out of the segregated South in the twenties and thirties to success on Philadelphia radio and the New York City stage in the forties to grueling tours in the fifties and over the long haul a brilliant recording career that carried well over into the 21st century. The story of the Dixie Hummingbirds is a tale of determined young men who navigated the troubled waters of racial division and the cutthroat business of music on the strength of raw talent, vision, character, and perseverance, and made an indelible name for themselves in American cultural history. This heavily edited 2nd edition features brand new photographs, expanded historical context, and a full new chapter on the Hummigbirds' trajectory up to the 21st century.

The first part of Nicaea and its Legacy offers a narrative of the fourth-century trinitarian controversy. It does not assume that the controversy begins with Arius, but with tensions among existing theological strategies. Lewis Ayres argues that, just as we cannot speak of one `Arian' theology, so we cannot speak of one `Nicene' theology either, in 325 or in 381. The second part of the book offers an account of the theological practices and assumptions within which pro-Nicene theologians assumed their short formulae and creeds were to be understood. Ayres also argues that there is no fundamental division between eastern and western trinitarian theologies at the end of the fourth century. The last section of the book challenges modern post-Hegelian trinitarian theology to engage with Nicaea more deeply.