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07538 August 30, 2007
Joyful Noise
At National Elders Conference, Melva Costen creates a choir
by Mike Ferguson Presbyterian News Service
NASHVILLE - Melva Costen doesn't mince words as she whips a 50-voice choir into shape. She's got just two 45-minute sessions to teach the choir at the National Elders Conference three songs they will sing in worship Thursday evening (Aug. 30).
More than 300 Presbyterian elders from all over the country are gathered here for the first-ever conference for denominational elders. The theme of the conference is "Elder as Spiritual Leader: Reclaiming the Call."
"Hold your copy up," Costen urges choir members, some of whom are singing while looking down. "You won't give your music halitosis."
Even a shortage in sheet music doesn't bother Costen, the recently-retired Helmar Emil Nielsen Professor of Music and Worship at the Interdenominational Theological Seminary in Atlanta. She teaches the songs by rote, a section at a time.
Costen, who chaired the committee that produced The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990), has seen and heard (or not heard) it all in a decades-long career of teaching, performing and conducting.
"I'm not hearing any consonants," she tells her makeshift choir early on.
"Eyes up," she calls out. "I'm going to do some directing now."
"Give me a little Presbyterian pulse with that," she orders.
The choir doesn't quite get the rhythm of "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning," so Costen looks heavenward, a palm on her forehead in mock chagrin. "Forgive us, God," she prays. The choir laughs.
"If you don't feel it," she says a little later, "it won't sing."
It doesn't take long before the choir does feel it. Soon they're performing the three selections, which include Richard Smallwood's "Total Praise" and the African song "Siyahamba," like a choir that's much more familiar with each other.
"My job is to get them interested in my interpretation," Costen says after the brief rehearsal. "Without much time to rehearse, the repetition in the music helps. I listen to them as much as they listen to me, and I let the choir dictate" the finished product, she says.
"Now put it all together," she tells choir members. "See how easy that is? The fun will be when you can sing it without the score."
Mike Ferguson, a Presbyterian elder, is a reporter for the Baker City Herald in Baker City, OR.
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