Category: Live

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Choir Church Commissions Congregational Songs Live Psalms

Blessed Beyond Measure: Premiere at Trinity Lutheran, Owatonna MN

This Sunday (4/28/19) was the premiere of “Psalm 84: Blessed Beyond Measure” at Trinity Lutheran Church in Owatonna, MN. The piece was commissioned for their 100th-year celebration service, which was held in a local arena. It was so beautiful to see 125 singers and instrumentalists of all stripes performing together.

Here is a link to the Facebook video: https://www.facebook.com/tlcowatonna/videos/405895356658711/?t=2430

And here is the song’s original post where you can find a leadsheet and some background: https://musicblog.gregscheer.com/2019/03/22/psalm-84-blessed-beyond-measure/

Below is the first page of the full score. If you want to peruse the score or get the organ/piano accompaniment, just email me.

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Congregational Songs Jazz Live Psalms

“Joy Inside My Tears” at Calvin College’s Chapel

Paul Ryan periodically asks me to speak/sing at Calvin’s chapel. On January 14, 2019 my theme was “Joy Inside My Tears,” in which I explored the paradoxes of the Christian’s emotional life in scripture and song. Just in case you don’t want to listen raptly to all 20+ minutes, here is the outline:

  • Prelude: “Joy Inside My Tears” from Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life
  • 2:00 Blah, blah, blah
  • 3:15 We Worship You (Scheer)
  • 7:00 More blah, blah, blah
  • 10:20 Psalm 30: I Worship You, O Lord (text: Seddon/Seerveld, tune: Norman L. Warren) A new jazz arrangement written especially for this chapel.
  • 15:00 Expanded blah, blah, blah
  • 23:50 Psalm 126: All Those Who Are Weeping (a beautiful song by Bifrost Arts)
  • Postlude: “People’s Parties” from Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark

Categories
Commissions Congregational Songs Live

Prayer of Jonah at Western Seminary

The first performance of “Prayer of Jonah” took place in December at Western Seminary. The song begins at 27:54 in this video, but the whole enactment of the book of Jonah is well worth watching. The next performance will be at the Calvin Worship Symposium during the Thursday and Friday Vesper services, 4:15pm in Gezon Auditorium.

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Art Music Choir Church Live

Blessed Be!

Update 9/16/20: Sheet music for this song can now be downloaded here.

It’s hard to believe that this piece is 23 years old! This setting of the song of Zechariah (Luke 1:67-79) was written when I lived in Pittsburgh and is performed here by the Duquesne University Choir under the direction of Brady Allred.

You can email me for music (edit: see link above). It comes in a variety of flavors: a cappella, SATB/Piano, or with brass and rhythm section; the rap is optional (and yes, I’m serious: there is a rap). You can also email me if you want to commission the rest of the movements that would complete this set. It’s going to be amazing and I know you want in!

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Choir Church Congregational Songs Live Psalms

As the Deer: Greenville, SC

I just found this video of Murray Freedman and the Westminster Presbyterian Church Chancel Choir singing my anthem, “As the Deer.” Good to know that my music has made it’s way to South Carolina!

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Arrangement Choir Church Commissions Congregational Songs Live Psalms

Wen Ti at the 2018 Calvin Worship Symposium

Last fall I was commissioned to write an arrangement of the Chinese folk song “Wen Ti” (聞笛) for the 2018 Calvin Worship Symposium. This beautiful tune often appears in hymnals with the benediction text “May the Lord, Mighty God.”

The idea for this concluding communion service was to weave the song throughout the service with new texts that fit different liturgical moments. Scroll through the video above to hear the different sections of the piece:

11:47 Call to Worship: “Lift Your Eyes unto the Hills” (based on Psalm 121 and 124)
21:44 Assurance of Pardon: “God Is Gracious to Forgive” (evoking Colossians 1:12-15)
1:22:56 Doxology “To the One Who’s Shown Us Love” (from Revelation 1:4-6)

I’m currently reworking this for publication in GIA’s Calvin choral series.

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Art Music Commissions Live Rock and/or Roll

Swampzilla at Rockford High School/Middle School

I had the great pleasure of composing a new piece for the Rockford School orchestras this spring. Directors Erin De Young and Allison Holden wanted a piece that would work for their combined orchestras: 6th grade through 10th. That’s a huge range of ability levels.

Part of the fun of this commission was that I got to work with the students as I developed the piece. We started by talking about the composition process and getting a chance to hear each group play. Then I composed three sketches for them to try out and decide which they liked best.

We decided to go with “Swampzilla”–essentially a rock and roll piece for orchestra. “Swampzilla” is a fictional “hideous marsh man with a heart of gold.” The piece starts (programmatically speaking) with Swampzilla rising from the twilight mist, dancing surprisingly well for a creature that has just risen from the fetid slough. There’s a slower section in the middle, which is the love theme for Zilla and his love, Gator Girl. And then the two lovers dance off into the evening mists.

The premiere was incredible. The combined orchestra had over 200 players packed onto the stage, wings, and the first few rows of the audience seating! The score had simplified parts for the younger players and solo parts for the very best older players. They all got to slap their strings to create a backbeat. The auditorium was packed, too, with well over 1000 people. You can hear from the applause at the end that they loved it. It’s hard not to love 200 young people rocking out a piece called “Swampzilla.”

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Art Music Commissions Finale demo Live

A Million Miles Away

I had the good fortune of receiving two commissions from school orchestras last year. “A Million Miles Away” was written for the St. Cecilia Concert Orchestra with Patricia Wunder conducting. As Maestra Wunder and I began brainstorming about what type of piece might fit her group, she explained that the rest of her program would be pieces based on stories–Telemann’s Don Quixote Suite, for example.

I decided to maintain that theme, composing a programmatic piece with a yet-as-undetermined story. Here’s how I described it in the concert’s program notes:

A Million Miles Away is a phrase that dropped into my mind as I began composing this commission for St. Cecilia. It certainly describes the desolate, open harmonies that were emerging in the early stages of the first draft. Knowing that my piece would be part of a concert of compositions based on stories, “A Million Miles Away” sounded like the title of a novel or movie without providing a full story. In fact, I’d love it if you would listen to the music and create your own story based on what you hear.

The piece is arranged in three sections–stars, sea, and sand. You can almost hear the pinpricks of light appearing in a black sky as the piece opens. Then waves begin to well up and break, splashing from one side of the orchestra to the next. Finally, the sounds become bone dry and blow away into nothing. The first and last sections are “aleatoric” sections that allow the performers a certain amount of freedom. For example, play the sequence of notes, but in any rhythm you want. It was challenging for the students to have that much freedom!

The above MP3 is a mock-up of the piece I created in Logic Pro. Below is a video of the concert.

Categories
Church Congregational Songs Live Psalms

Close to Your Heart (at Fellowship Reformed, Holland)

Fellowship Reformed, Holland, MI

Two more recordings of yesterday’s “Close to My Heart.” Above is Jordan Clegg leading the Fellowship Reformed gang in a beautiful rendition that includes penny whistle (played by Jackson Nickolay). Below is yours truly in a stripped down acoustic version.

Update 12/11/21: Sheet music for this song can now be purchased at gregscheer.com.

Categories
Arrangement Congregational Songs Live

My Friends May You Grow in Grace, orchestra

Update 12/11/21: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.

One of the fun things about doing music is that I get to meet people–virtually or in person–from all over the world. One of those musical friends is Jill Friend (actual name) from Sioux Center, Iowa. Jill periodically uses my arrangements for orchestra at her school and church. Below is a recording from Covenant CRC Church on May 20, 2018. I love to see videos like this, with all ages taking part in a church’s music. And I’m pleased that it was my arrangement of My Friends, May You Grow in Grace that enabled this intergenerational orchestra to play together. Thanks for sharing, Jill!

If you’d like to try this arrangement in your church, go to gregscheer.com to purchase the score.