London Sacred Harp

On the Bank Holiday Monday, a group of singers from London Sacred Harp will be “performing” at two events during the festival.

The festival is taking place at:

Royal Festival Hall
Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road
London SE1 8XX

We have a slot in the “choral trading station” slot from 12-12.50 pm at the St. Paul’s Pavilion, Level 6, Royal Festival Hall. The group will demonstrate Sacred Harp singing and a tiny overview of the “repertoire” to members of the public, which will be accompanied by some commentary, an introduction to the shaped note notation system and some scale-singing. We will also teach the public one or two songs. Please note: This is not a singing school – it is more in the nature of a demonstration. If you have never sung this music before, this is an opportunity to hear and experience it and to get a very first overview of what it is all about, but we will not be workshopping songs or working on easy beginner’s songs. Rather, what you will hopefully hear is snatches of this music’s full potential.

We have a slot in the Choral Platform for a `performance’ of Sacred Harp music from 1.30-2pm, when we will be singing a selection of songs from The Sacred Harp, including some of the same songs we sang during the choral tradition station.

There was a lot of singing in London this weekend! Here are some sound files from the Bloomsbury singings on Saturday and Monday:

425, Golden Streets

290, Victoria

235b, Long Sought Home

448b, The Grieved Soul

From Saturday 18 May to Wednesday 22 May 2013, we are sponsoring a residential course called “Singing in the Southern US Shape Note Tradition” at Laurieston Hall, near Castle Douglas in Scotland. This course is amazingly affordable and in a beautiful corner of southwestern Scotland, only 30 miles from the English border. More information here.

Join us for our inaugural ”Last Wednesday” singing  at Bethnal Green Meeting House, Pott Street, Bethnal Green, E2 0EF. Starting time is 7.45 pm, running to 10 pm; this singing will occur every month in Bethnal Green, on the last Wednesday of every month!

Be sure to check out the newly added “Further Reading” page on the site – it contains invaluable suggestions by LSH singer and avid amateur SH historian Rebecca Over.

This evening we had another great crowd at the Bloomsbury singing – nearly 50 people. The sound was again beautiful. This song comes from the Christian Harmony. It is a perfect advertisement for the austere beauty of shapenote music.

Hark the Glad Sound, the Saviour Comes (Tune: Derrick, from the Christian Harmony)

And here is another Christmas song – Rapturous Scene  (from the Christian Harmony)

“Wrapped in the silence of the night lay all the eastern world,

when bursting glorious heavenly light the wondrous scene unfurled.

Hark how cherubic armies shout, and glory leads the song,

goodwill and peace are heard throughout th’harmonious heavenly throng.

With songs and honours sounding loud, address the Lord on high.

Over the heav’ns he spreads his clouds and waters veil the sky.

He sends his showers of blessings down to cheer the plains below;

he makes the grass the mountains crown, and corn in valleys grow.

His steady counsels change the face of each declining year.

He bids the sun cut short his race, and wintry days appear.

On us his providence has shone with gentle smiling rays,

o, may our lips and lives make known his goodness and his praise.

This 30-minute documentary will air on Monday, 3 December at 4 pm on BBC Radio 4.

Cerys Matthews visits Alabama to uncover a sacred choral tradition. Widely practiced before the American Civil War, Sacred Harp singing is currently experiencing a global resurgence.

Once called ‘white spiritual’, this haunting unaccompanied choral tradition survived in the small rural Baptist churches of the American Deep South. Very different to bluegrass and to African American Gospel music, Sacred Harp preserved Anglo-Celtic practices that were subsequently lost in the UK.

Today, this music is spreading from the Deep South around the US and is even developing a following in the UK. Cerys travels to an all-day singing convention in Alabama to find out why the music is not just surviving but flourishing. In an age when church attendance is dropping fast, what is attracting people all over the US and the UK to sing archaic hymns?

Also called ‘shape note singing’, the music is based around the Sacred Harp hymn book compiled in Georgia in 1844. The pages show different shapes above the words to indicate the notes, enabling songs to be sung on sight. Gatherings are arranged in a hollow square with the self-selected leader entering the middle to call out the number of their chosen song. No applause or audience is allowed. Far removed from ‘happy clappy’, they are often austere hymns with themes of death and the pain of everyday existence.

Contributors include Hugh McGraw, Jesse Karlsberg, Warren Steele, Reba Del Windom, Henry Johnson, Michael Walker, Emma Rose Brown and Sam Carter.

For information on Sacred Harp singing around the UK:

http://www.ukshapenote.org.uk/

http://londonsacredharp.org/

Produced by Joby Waldman

A Somethin’ Else production for BBC Radio 4.

Our November Bloomsbury singing was amazing – because of the scores of new people and because we had so many lovely visitors from Ireland and the US. There are about 60 people there on the night. Here are a few sound files!

131t

306

56b

65

47t and 274 SH.

The 5th London All-Day Singing last Saturday – an “EU Young People’s Singing”, chaired by Duane Nasis – was a smashing success. There were 60-70 people there, including a few members of the public there who had read about Sacred Harp in the Times and quite a few others who had heard of it through friends but never attended before.

The many visitors from Ireland, Poland, Germany and Lithuania certainly swelled the numbers and made for a glorious sound. Unfortunately, there was file corruption on the morning recording but I did get a good hour of the afternoon on the zoom, and am pleased to share a few of the sound files here.

As rising star of English folk Sam Carter put it, the singing on Saturday was “glorious”. That seems about right to me.

Have a listen…

and last but not least, strikingly beautiful alto on this one…