In the era of phones and social media, we are constantly bombarded with videos that fight for our attention. The videos are getting shorter, and their creators are making sure the first few seconds grab our attention well enough so that we keep watching. All this makes a 6-minute video feel like an eternity. 

In a countertrend fashion today I am inviting you to watch a 6-minute video. It starts slowly and quietly, and it will require you to focus and tune out a lot of noise from your immediate background. Another side effect of the proliferation of videos is that we rarely have time to realize what it takes to make them, and what happens behind the scenes. In the case of the video I am sharing with you below, it took time, effort, dedication, and a whole team of fantastic people.

Last winter our Artist-In-Residence Lorraine Brugh and I were brainstorming intergenerational pieces with the use of steel drums. She came up with a great piece for SATB choir, percussion, and steel drums: "Kyrie" from St. Francis in the Americas: A Caribbean Mass by Glenn McClure. It weaves the Greek text "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy" and a prayer written by Francis of Assisi into the fabric of a Caribbean Samba. I looked at the score and knew immediately that it would be equally as amazing as challenging to perform, and with some extensive practice definitely within reach for our ensembles. Ruthie Wilde, Sonja Branch, and I decided to move on with the idea, and I ordered the scores. The use of Italian presented somewhat of a challenge for our Chancel Choir, but in the span of 5 rehearsals, they learned the music and the language pretty well. It took 6 Sunday afternoon rehearsals for the kids to navigate the music. Sonja had to make some adjustments to the original score in order to make it more accessible to some players (a practice which is typical for us church musicians - we arrange and rearrange scores in order for them to work with the ensembles and instruments we have at hand). Kyleigh Green, who played the drum set, took her score home and practiced with her drum teacher - that's what I call budding professionalism! This was a challenging piece for the youth but thanks to their musicianship and the dedication of our excellent teachers, Ruthie, Sonja, and JT, they learned it in time for February 27th Sunday worship. In the video below I combined our live stream feed and two cell phone videos taken by moms of our youth. For your convenience, I added the names of our young musicians and lyrics. I hope you will take 6 minutes from your day to enjoy this video knowing the behind-the-scenes facts: