GIMC Variations on the 23rd Psalm ("The Lord is My
Shepherd")
MAr
30
Join GIMC's exploration of diverse rich liturgical
expression 
Every
spiritual community has its unique way of singing a new song to the
Lord. On Sunday, March 30, you'll have an opportunity to hear a
diverse array of such musical offerings, when individuals and groups
from various Nashville churches and synagogues will perform their
own versions of the beloved 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd."
In this concert-intended for music lovers of all sorts-the cup of
beautiful song will run over.
March 30th - 8pm
PM 8
Blair School of Music - Turner Hall - Vanderbilt
University
Participants will include the Christ Cathedral Choir, directed by
Michael Velting, Cantor Stanley Weinberger from West End Synagogue,
Vanderiblt's own Voices of Praise, and Divinity Professor John
McClure performing his own version of Psalm 23. During the concert,
Blair School composer Michael Alec Rose will comment on the
relationships between the biblical text and its different musical
settings and provide examples of how this particular psalm has
inspired composers from the classical tradition. Finally, Professor
Rose will offer his own new setting of "The Lord is my shepherd."
Celebration, Performance, Dialogue
"Variations on the 23rd Psalm" will dramatize the rich diversity of
religious musical practice in our city of Nashville, the jewel in the
Southern crown of spiritual pluralism. The event is an extraordinarily
vivid way to investigate God in Music City. Through performances of
various settings of the same biblical text by performers who use these
same settings in their ongoing congregational liturgical practice, the
program will celebrate the way in which different musical realizations
can affect-even dramatically alter-the meaning and purpose of a sacred
text as it serves a faith community, just as the 23rd Psalm has served
innumerable faith communities for thousands of years. The location of
the event at the Blair School of Music has inspired the added
educational and creative dimensions of the concert: through brief
recorded examples of classic Psalm 23 settings and the premiere of a new
meditation on the psalm by Michael Alec Rose, this evening of music and
commentary will take the sense of its title -variations on a psalm-as
far as it ought to go, as far as the mysterious text of the psalm
demands.
Facilitated by Dr. Michael Rose
Michael Alec Rose is Associate Professor of Composition
at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music. His works have been
commissioned by many outstanding organizations, including the Walter W.
Naumburg Foundation, the International Spoleto Festival, the Blair and
Mendelssohn Quartets, and the Nashville Symphony (three compositions for
that ensemble). He has received twenty-two consecutive annual awards in
composition from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and
Publishers, 1986-2007. In September, 2007, Rose was invited for his
second residency at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where his
Hubbert Peak: Two Gas Stations for String Quartet was premiered by the
Kreutzer Quartet. Professor Rose studied with Pulitzer-Prize winning
composers George Crumb and Richard Wernick, as well as with two other
legendary mentors, George Rochberg and Samuel Adler. He has won
several major teaching awards at Vanderbilt, including the prestigious
Chair of Teaching Excellence.
