New music added: Windella, by Dorothea Baker

I’m — slowly — working through my data entry backlog, and finally at a point where I can start adding music to the site again.

Today I added a hymn with words and music written by Dorothea Baker. The words are based loosely on the Nunc dimittis, making it suitable for Evensong, Compline or Candlemas; I’ve added it to the Evensong category on the site, because I figure that’s where people will be looking for Candlemas stuff anyway.

Here’s an mp3 recording, which you can download if the embedded player isn’t working:

And here’s a .pdf to download:
PDF of ‘Windella’ by Dorothea Baker

I am fond of the serene simplicity of this hymn, and it shouldn’t be hard for a congregation to pick up. Though it’s scored for SATB, it might be prudent to sing it in unison unless you have basses who can sing a bottom E comfortably.

I would really love to include more hymns on this site in general: congregations may grumble a bit about new hymns, but once people have become accustomed to the idea of not always using the same hymnal it can be a great way to introduce new music. Some of this, of course, will come down to me buying a few of the newer hymnals and making some recommendations; but if you know of hymns with music by women that you’d like to see included on this site, then please use the music submission form to let me know about them.

New music this week: Ruth Watson Henderson

This week I was sent a wonderful list of music by women, thanks to the Multitude of Voyces project. I promptly fell down a rabbit hole of listening to lots of music instead of updating my database… hence this post is a day late.

When I finally pried myself away from the Tube of You, I added some work by Canadian composer Ruth Watson Henderson to the site, and I added a new page for works I haven’t sorted into categories yet.

Here’s Ruth Watson Henderson’s Missa Brevis:

[Listen to Missa Brevis by Ruth Watson Henderson on Youtube]

I’m going to take a couple of weeks off from updating the database, so there won’t be “new music this week” posts on Tuesday 26th December or Tuesday 2nd January. I do still intend to make music recommendations, though.

New music this week: Justine Koontz

During an already-busy time of year for church musicians (even ones like me who don’t have a steady post), something came up this past week that demanded a lot of my time and attention.

As a result I haven’t added very much music to the site this week. Just one piece, in fact: this rather lovely setting of “In the Bleak Midwinter” by Justine Koontz, for unison voices with piano accompaniment.

order the score from her website.