What a fun trip last week for the Christian Congregational Music Conference and the Three Choirs Festival – I am SO jetlagged, even after sleeping 9 (!) hours last night….
Here are some photos from my trip, the fantastic choral music I heard, plus an overview of my talk at the conference.
I began my trip with a weekend in Gloucester for the Three Choirs Festival, one of the oldest choral music festivals in the world – it’s been around since the early 1700s. The musical highlight for me was Kerensa Briggs‘ Gloucester Service (especially the Magnificat – seriously, listen for the line beginning “He has shown strength….” !!!!!).
After Gloucester, I headed to the conference – it was held outside of Oxford in Cuddesdon. I stayed in the city and took a bus to the conference each day.
The conference kicked off with a fantastic panel on Congregational Music and the Black Atlantic.
Let’s talk about the conference.
Oddly enough, I was the only person with a *church* affiliation listed on the conference program, even though many of the speakers are practitioners. Some folks mentioned that I could have listed Duke on the program instead of my employer/church, but you know what? I’m proud that my employer provides professional development time and money, and that it supports my ministry through writing, speaking, and podcasting. Go First Congregational!
My presentation related to my current book project about integrating personal faith and public ministry.
As part of my research, I’m interviewing Christian leaders in various ministry positions – pastors, youth leaders, teachers and so on. Of course, I’m also talking with church musicians, so I focused my presentation on how this research broadened my views on congregational music scholarship. (Remember, this was a conference devoted to congregational music, so I was speaking mostly to people whose research involves church musicians.)
Here are some things we scholars tend to forget, ignore, or discount about church musicians in our writing:
First, that church musicians tend to have much more experience across denominations than other church leaders do.
Second, that we often talk to and about musicians as if they are in similar power positions as clergy, but in fact, most musicians are paid less and have less institutional power than clergy.
Finally, I talked about how my current research has reminded me that church musicians have jobs that involve much more than music making.
What a wonderful trip – I’m already looking forward to two years from now when the next Christian Congregational Music Conference will be held. Coming up much sooner (as in next week): the first episode of Music and the Church featuring a plenary speaker from the conference. I can’t wait to share it with you!
