This fall I visited Baylor University, giving the “Hearn Innovator” lecture, speaking in classes, and enjoying rich conversations with students and faculty. One of my favorite events was leading a chapel of Psalm singing. The band was tight and the students were (mostly) enthusiastic. My part begins at 11:47.
Category: Live
On October 28, I was privileged to lead Calvin University’s chapel with the Campus Choir. We focused on Psalm 103–my favorite–singing four different versions of the Psalm as a way of “preaching with song.” We sang Taizé’s “Bless the Lord My Soul,” Matt Redman’s “Ten Thousand Reasons,” and the classic hymn “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven.” We concluded with my anthem, “Bless the Lord, O My Soul!” which begins at 17:23. A good time was had by all. (As far as I could tell.)
Last year I attended a songwriting retreat that focused on writing Christmas songs for too often overlooked themes. Great writers like Liz Vice, Matt Papa, Eddie Espinosa, and Latifah Alattas applied their skills to theological ideas like the union of heaven and earth in the person of Christ and the dark side of the Christmas story such as the slaughter of the innocents and the flight to Egypt.
It was at this retreat that I wrote “Jesus, Be Enough.” In the year since, I’ve wondered what this song wants to be when it grows up. Now, just in time for Christmas, it has decided that it would like to be a choral anthem! Above, you can listen to a rough demo I recorded at choir rehearsal this evening. To download it for your choir you can visit my website: https://gregscheer.com/product/jesus-be-enough/.
Singing Scheer Psalms in Indonesia translation is certainly a niche interest. Nonetheless, I wanted to make this video available for all the people who might be interested. Both of you…
I’m making self-deprecating jokes, but this was a really wonderful evening. The GKY Manggabesar is a singing congregation. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my friend (and GKY pastor) Lucky Samuel had already taught many of these songs to his congregation. What a gift to hear them singing songs I had written half a world away in their own language!
I was privileged to receive a commission from Baylor University to compose a piece on the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, “Binsey Poplars.”
The poem is an ode to Hopkins’ once-favorite, now-felled trees, but it is also a meditation on the environment and the ways humans interact with it. Ultimately, it is a poem of loss and grief.
The premiere took place at Baylor’s Armstrong Browning Library on September 20, 2019, with Karen Hogue, soprano, the Ensemble from First United Methodist, Weatherford, and Carlos Colón on the piano.
You know you can email me to peruse the score, right?
felled 1879
My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow & river & wind-wandering weed-winding bank.
O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew —
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being só slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will make no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc unselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.
I was commissioned by Calvin College to arrange Wendell Kimbrough’s fabulous song “Rejoice in All Your Works (Psalm 104)” for their 2018 graduation ceremony. The song is arranged for choir, wind ensemble, praise band, and 5,000 singers.
It was a lot of notes. (Which means a lot of work and a lot of time.) But it was worth it to hear the Van Noord arena reverberate with the sound of praise coming from joyful graduates and their grateful families.
An octavo of the choral anthem (with more modest instrumental forces) will be published by GIA in the coming year.
If you missed Western Seminary’s performance of my “Prayer of Jonah,” just click below. The song starts at 20:57, but the whole service is well worth watching.
Oh, if you happen to be looking for a scripture song accompanied by 5 electric basses (and really, who isn’t?) just contact me for the music.
This spring, I had the great good fortune to compose a new piece for the Calvin Community Symphony’s 25th-anniversary concert. Below are the program notes:
It may seem obvious—even unimaginative—to name a piece commissioned for a 25th anniversary concert “25.” What is perhaps less obvious is that the composition is in a 25/8 meter*.
One 8th note per year is not only a fitting starting place for a 25th anniversary piece, but it continues my long term exploration of rhythm. My compositions often draw on the rhythmic vitality of African, Celtic, Pop, and Minimalist music. In “25” you can hear the uneven rhythms of Eastern Europe folk music, Medieval dances, or even the Genevan Psalter.
If you listen carefully, you will also hear echoes of Ravel’s “Boléro.” Instead of Ravel’s famous snare drum rhythm, “25” begins with brushed snare, immediately announcing its connection to dance rhythms of our day, especially jazz. On top of the brushed snare, a series of solo instruments enter one at a time—flute, clarinet, etc—the beginning of a wedge that grows in volume, intensity, and range throughout the whole composition. Speaking of intensity, the piannisimo brushed snare rhythm morphs and grows throughout the piece, making a brash recapitulation at the drum set near the end.
Heartfelt thanks are due Maestro Varineau and the musicians of the Calvin Community Symphony for the love they’ve shown this new composition. Thank you for making me part of your 25th anniversary!
—Greg Scheer
*Technically, the piece is in a consistent four-measure pattern: 6/8+7/8+6/8+3/4. I’m nerdy enough to take on the challenge of composing in an odd meter, but not stupid enough to make the musicians read a 25/8 time signature!
From this blog, you may get the impression that my compositional life has been dormant. On the contrary! I have been so busy composing new music that I haven’t had time to document my musical activities here. Over the next few days, I will try to catch up on the backlog of recordings that have never quite made it to my blog.
First up is this recording of “O One with God the Father.” You’ll remember the song first made its appearance in this blog in 2018. A few months later, my friends at Church of the Servant (my “alma mater” church) sang it in one of their services.
One of the tests of a congregational song is whether it can thrive outside its original context. In the church where a song is written, the people may be emotionally attached to the song because they know the writer, or they may have extra help learning the song. When a song is sung at a new church, it is just a song. That’s when you find out if it “has legs.” It sounds to me like this new song worked pretty well at COS. Maybe it has a future!
Categories
“Feed Us, Lord” in Denver
You never know if a song is going to travel. I’ve written hundreds of songs, but there’s just no predicting which one will grab people’s attention or even get the opportunity to be heard at all. I guess it’s a little like fishing.
“Feed Us, Lord” is a little communion chorus I wrote a number of years ago. Think of it as Taizé meets praise ballad–it’s simple and repetitive enough to be sung during communion.
If I remember correctly, I submitted it to the “cattle call” for the United Methodist Worship and Song hymnal. These preliminary calls for submissions regularly receive 2,000 – 5,000 songs that the poor committee members have to sift through. I would like to think they chose my song because of its superior craftsmanship and theological acumen, but I’m pretty sure it was actually for two very practical reasons: 1. There aren’t a lot of contemporary(ish) songs for the Lord’s Supper. 2. It only takes up a half page.
From there it was picked up by the Presbyterian Glory to God hymnal. And from there it ended up in a YouTube video of Central Presbyterian Church of Denver’s communion.
This, my friends, his how a song travels.