by Kile Smith | Feb 25, 2013 | American music, Chamber Music, new music
As if Sunday’s successes of Red-tail and Hummingbird weren’t enough, a drive from Swarthmore’s concert to Abington took me to the loveliest of Lenten recitals given at Holy Trinity Lutheran, to American Spirituals, Book One played by violinist James...
by Kile Smith | Dec 17, 2012 | Choral music, church music, hymn, liturgical music, Lutheran, new music
Thank you to Jackie and the choir of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Abington, Pa., for singing my hymn, Powers of Heaven yesterday. The hymn is a setting of an Advent text by the Rev. Dr. Michael Tavella at Holy Trinity. It was Vespers for this Third Sunday of Advent,...
by Kile Smith | Oct 25, 2011 | Choral music, church music, Fleisher Collection, hymn, Lutheran
An exhilarating Sunday night at Holy Trinity Lutheran, where we held our Hymn Festival, exploring Martin Luther’s Seven Marks of the Church, through Lutheran hymns—so many hymns, and A Mighty Fortress nowhere in sight. Jackie once again put together a fantastic...
by Kile Smith | Sep 12, 2010 | Baroque music, Composition, Pop Music
[A revised version of this, without musical examples, published in Broad Street Review 20 Mar 2012 as “Between Bach and ‘O-o-h Child'”] One of the best pop songs ever produced, “O-o-h Child,” from 1970, is #392 in Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs...
