wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Making a joyful noise

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Note #7696 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Making a joyful noise
GA03001

Making a joyful noise

Worship music in harmony with Assembly theme of diversity

by Vicki Fogel Mykles

Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty
firmament!
Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his surpassing
goodness!
Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with clanging cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

	Psalm 150

DENVER, May 24  During the opening worship service of the 215th General
Assembly, Music Director John Kuzma says he hopes to really rock the house.

	Not rock as in Little Richard, the Rolling Stones or Flogging Molly
(although a rock band called Beyond the Cave will be featured in a service
on Thursday), but rock as in creating a musical atmosphere to stimulate the
spiritual and intellectual lives of all who show up to praise God.

	Kuzma, the minister of music at Denvers Montview Presbyterian
Church, was invited by the Committee on Local Arrangements (COLA) to
coordinate the music for Assembly worship. He started more than a year ago
and has worked every day since to recruit singers and instrumentalists to
enrich this years worship experiences.

	Early on, churches in the region were invited to send choristers to
take part in the Assemblys opening-day Celebration Sunday service on May 25.
The result is a massed choir of singers representing more than 40
congregations. Most are from the Front Range area, but some will have
traveled from as far away as Wyoming, Nebraska and California.

	The musical selections were chosen by the COLA Worship Committee and
disclosed to participating churches in mid-March. Kuzma coordinated
rehearsals with local choir directors.

	The logistical underpinnings of organizing all of this were
enormous, he says. It was far too important to be left to a guy like me. I
had lots of help.

	The helpers included Dr. Jerrald McCollom, a former minister of music
at Montview, who helped with church contacts; Susie Phillips, the General
Assembly librarian, who distributed sheet music; Jenny Bock, who helped with
logistics; and Marcia Whitcomb, who hired the instrumentalists. Kuzma also
brought in two associate directors: Leslie Britton for the youth choir and
Fannie Scott for the childrens choir.

	Kuzma attended last years General Assembly in Columbus, OH, to
observe the process. Working with a group this large requires a clear
artistic vision, realistic expectations, and good planning, he says. Well
have 660 choristers in the Celebration Sunday choir  530 adults, 90 youths
and 40 children.

	Kuzma also will conduct 10 brass players, five percussionists, six
bagpipers, two Scottish drummers, an organist, players of wind instruments
and steel pans, and Native American flutist Calvin Standing Bear, an
Oglala/Sicangu Lakota Sioux from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.

	The Assembly moderator, the Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, asked that some
Palestinian music be included, causing Kuzma to wonder what the very first
communion hymn might have sounded like. He found an early 4th-century
Syrian/Christian hymn that he says will be played during Communion by soft
bagpipes.

	The General Assembly commissioned Kuzma to write an original anthem
for Celebration Sunday. Using the Assemblys scriptural theme, A House of
Prayer for All Peoples (a reference to Isaiah 56), he composed a piece about
inclusiveness.

	While inclusiveness is not a new theme, it is a continuing concern
for the church, he says. I wanted to deal with this important topic in an
original way. Instead of placing a Korean hymn here and a Hispanic hymn
there, I chose to weld together the diversity of Gods people within the
instrumental music of a single piece.

	Kuzma says he hopes his blend of ethnic instruments and sounds will
help worshipers imagine more than the text can convey.

	As if directing the massive musical production of the Sunday
Celebration and composing an original anthem werent enough, Kuzma also
organized the music for the daily worship services, paying careful attention
to the wealth of musical styles that represent the diversity of Gods people.

	He says he has focused on creating ecstatic music to lead Assembly
worshipers to an ecstatic spirituality.

	So come and worship  and be ready to be rocked.

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