Showing posts with label Phillip Keveren. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Phillip Keveren. Show all posts

Friday, April 23, 2021

Music for April 25, 2021 + The Fourth Sunday of Easter

Good Shepherd Sunday

Vocal Music

  • Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us – William Bradley Roberts (b. 1947)

Instrumental Music

  • He Leadeth Me/Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us – arr. Phillip Keveren (b. 1961)
  • My Shepherd Will Supply My Need – arr. Brian Henkelmann (b. 1956)
  • Communion – Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
  • Tuba Tune – C. S. Lang (1891-1971)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “*” which are from Wonder, Love, and Praise.)

  • Canticle*- Christ our Passover (Pascha nostrum) (SINE NOMINE)
  • Hymn 208 - Alleluia! The Strife is O’er (VICTORY)
  • Hymn 304 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
  • Psalm 23 - simplified Anglican chant by Jerome W. Meachen
The fourth Sunday of Easter is also called Good Shepherd Sunday, for the Psalm is always Psalm 23, and the Gospel reading references sheep. Many churches named after saints will often claim that saint's day as their "patronal" festival, so it is fitting that the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Kingwood should look to this day as our own feast day.

Jackson Hearn and Grace Tice
(looking for all the world like a prom picture)
With that in mind, we celebrate with music appropriate to the day. Not only does this Sunday mark the official return of the choir, but also brings a guest musician, the oboist (and my dear friend) Grace Tice. Grace is a free-lance musician in the Houston area, with degrees from North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) and Rice. She has performed with the Houston Ballet Orchestra as well as several regional orchestras. She is a favorite of church musicians in Houston, because not only is she extremely musical but also because she lives up to her name, Grace.

Grace will be heard on the choir's anthem, a setting of the text "Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us" which first appeared in Hymns for the Young, 1840, which was edited by Dorothy Ann Thrupp. Although no author's name appears with the text, it is thought that Thrupp wrote it, since she often published hymns anonymously, under the pseudonym "Iota," or simply using her initials. 

The text is coupled with a new tune written by William Bradley Roberts, the Professor Emeritus of Church Music at Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria. Previously he was a parish musician, serving at St. John’s, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., and at churches in Tucson, Newport Beach, Louisville, and Houston, where he was a student at Houston Baptist University.

In addition to playing with the choir on their anthem, Grace and I will play arrangements of some "Shepherd Hymns" for oboe and piano. We will start with a "mash-up" of two American hymn-tunes associated with the texts He Leadeth Me and Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us. If you came to the Episcopal church out of any other Protestant tradition, you will likely recognize these two tunes.

He Leadeth Me is a hymn paraphrase of Psalm 23, written in the late 1800s by Baptist minister Joseph Gilmore. With its tune by William Bradbury, it has appeared in well over 1150 hymnals - with 50 of those being published since 1979. It is not in The Hymnal 1982.

The other tune in this "mash-up" (I still can't use that term without thinking of the TV series GLEE which introduced it to me.) is the  tune used in most hymnals for Savior, like a Shepherd lead us. This tune is named BRADBURY, after its composer, William Bradbury (the same William Bradbury who wrote He Leadeth Me.) This tune is pair with this text in at least 254 modern hymnals, while the tune in our hymnal, SICILIAN MARINERS, is paired only three times.

This arrangement of these two hymns is the work of Phillip Keveren, a multi-talented keyboard artist and composer living in Brentwood (Nashville), Tennessee. He composes in a variety of genres, and is widely acclaimed for his piano publications. Mr. Keveren is a prolific arranger, orchestrator and producer. His work is featured in numerous instrumental recordings, church choral, educational piano and Christian artist releases. His arrangements and compositions appear on recent projects by Sandi Patty, Travis Cottrell, Sara Groves and Ronan Tynan. Keveren holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition from California State University, Northridge, and a Master of Music in Composition from the University of Southern California.

The other piece in the opening voluntary is a oboe and piano setting of the Southern hymn, My Shepherd Will Supply My Need. It is arranged by Brian Henkelmann, a pianist, organist, composer and educator currently living in Jonesboro, Arkansas, where he is organist at the First United Methodist Church and on the faculty of Arkansas State University. Henkelmann holds a bachelor of arts in music from Moravian College, a master of arts in theological studies from Moravian Theological Seminary, and a master of church music from Concordia University Chicago. 

Monday, July 18, 2016

Music for July 24, 2016 + The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music
  • Precious Lord, take my hand– Thomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993)(Margie VanBrackle, soprano)

Instrumental Music
  • Largo from "Xerxes" - Georg Frederich Handel (1685-1759)
  • Give Thanks - Henry Smith, arr. by Phillip Keveren
  • Hornpipe from "Water Music" - Georg Frederich Handel
Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)
  • Hymn 410 - Praise, my soul, the King of heaven (Lauda Anima)
  • Hymn 488 - Be thou my vision (Slane)
  • Hymn 707 - Take my life, and let it be consecrated (Hollingside)
  • Hymn 711 - Seek ye first the kingdom of God (Seek Ye First)
  • Hymn 615 - “Thy kingdom come!” (St. Flavian)
  • Psalm 138 - Confitebor tibi - Kevin R. Hackett, based on In Babilone 
Below are pictures of Tommy Dorsey and Thomas A. Dorsey. Both were musicians.  Both were active in the first part of the 20th century. And both are considered pioneers in their chosen field. But despite these similarities, they are still two very different people. Whereas Tommy Dorsey was one of the first to promote swing music (at least among the white population), Thomas Dorsey was the creator of gospel music -- the African American religious music which married secular blues to a sacred text.

Tommy
Thomas
Dorsey was working as a Blues pianist in Chicago when, at twenty-six, his hectic and unhealthy schedule led to a nervous breakdown, leaving Dorsey unable to play music. After a three year recovery, he committed himself to composing sacred music. Then Dorsey’s life was thrown into crisis when his wife and son died during childbirth. In his grief, he turned to the piano for comfort. The tune he wrote, “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” came, he says, direct from God, and became a Gospel standard.

The communion voluntary is a piano piece based on the song Give Thanks With A Grateful Heart. It is arranged by Phillip Keveren, a prolific arranger, pianist, orchestrator and producer. His work is featured in numerous instrumental recordings, church choral, educational piano and Christian artist releases. His arrangements and compositions appear on recent projects by Sandi Patty, Travis Cottrell, Sara Groves and Ronan Tynan.

Mr. Keveren holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition from California State University, Northridge, and a Master of Music in Composition from the University of Southern California. He and his wife Lisa live in Brentwood, Tennessee and are parents of two children, Lindsay and Sean. 

Many, many thanks to Margie VanBrackle for singing and  Karen Silva for playing the organ in my absence while I am at the Mississippi Conference for Church Music and Liturgy this week. Good Shepherd is blessed to have some very talented members of our family.