As someone who works in both the sacred and secular worlds, I see how the gulf between pop and art music is as wide in mainstream Christian worship as in the secular world.
Some music and worship leaders don’t want anything to do with pop music. Others want to stick to an aesthetic that broadly encompasses Medieval plainsong to 19th century hymnody. Some congregations get a chance to mix pop and traditional styles.
It all depends on who the regular worshippers are.
Despite this diversity, hymn competitions appear to be stuck in the traditionalist track.
A few weeks ago, Toronto’s Pax Christi Chorale announced its Great Canadian Hymn Competition II, which has a deadline of June 1. It joins regular competitions organised by Music United, Canada’s association of United Church Musicians, the U.S.-based Association of Anglican Musicians, the U.K.’s Royal School of Church Music, the Royal Canadian College of Organists and dozens of one-off competitions organised by publishers, religious organizations and faith-based charities throughout the English-speaking world.
In many instances, competition organisers require that a particular text be set or, at the very least, that the hymns be written for a particular occasion or church season.
The peculiar thing about these competitions is that they so often look to the past, not the future.
The winner of the latest Anglican Musician competition, to be announced at a conference in Denver in June, needed to set an oft-used 19th century text by 19th century poet George Washington Doane. “Thou Art the Way,” is hardly likely to inspire a revolution in congregational singing.
The most recent United Church seasonal competition was for a hymn for Holy Week or Easter. The winning entry, by William Petricko, was “Alone in Gethsemane,” is now available to all United Church musicians.
Having a new hymn to sing is great, but does what we hear here (courtesy of Edmonton’s Robertson Wesley United Church choir and music director Tammy-Jo Mortensen) truly add something to what’s already in our hymn books?
Let’s contrast this with pop-style praise songs, which sprout on YouTube like mushrooms in rainy weather. This one, as typical of its genre as “Alone in Gethsemane” is of its own, was written and recorded by Campbell Platt last fall. Like the previous hymn, this song would hardly be missed if its pdf files vapourized overnight:
The point I’m trying to get to is that perhaps it could be worth exploring ways to make the middle ground between these two styles more appealing. Since we have a competition happening right here in Toronto, right now, this might be an opportunity to give it a try.
For all the details on the Great Canadian Hymn Competition II, click here. There is a nice podcast that includes the winner of the first competition here.
John Terauds