Eleventh Garden State Sacred Harp Singing Convention & Seventh "Unconventional Sunday"  marking the tenth anniversary of Sacred Harp singing at Montclair Friends Meetinghouse

Convention details

Friday: Workshop with Tim Eriksen, Hollywood's "Singing Master to the Stars"

Okay, Tim doesn't actually call himself "Singing Master to the Stars." But it's true: when director Anthony Minghella (of The English Patient fame) and musical director T-Bone Burnett (O Brother, Where Art Thou?) needed a musician to teach actors Nicole Kidman, Jude Law, and Donald Sutherland to sing traditional American "Sacred Harp" music for the upcoming Miramax release Cold Mountain, they could not have chosen a better teacher than the one they picked: the multi-talented musician Tim Eriksen. For this film he also performed the singing voice of actor Brendan Gleeson, appeared on screen in a bit part as the "choir master," and recorded with artists including Ralph Stanley, Norman Blake and Jack White of current garage rock favorites The White Stripes.

The Garden State Sacred Harp Singing Convention is delighted to have secured Tim’s services as our special guest singing master on the Friday evening of the convention. His name now joins the long and distinguished roster of outstanding Sacred Harp singers who have offered their insight and instruction to us each year since the founding of our convention.

Tim Eriksen’s remarkable voice and musicianship are best known to acoustic music fans through his spine chilling renditions of old American hymns, ballads and love songs, both as a solo artist and with the eclectic, world-music influenced band Cordelia’s Dad. His first love, however, is community music, especially social singing in the venerable American Sacred Harp tradition.

As a founding member of Cordelia's Dad, Northampton Harmony and Zabe i Babe, Tim Eriksen has toured the world, made dozens of recordings and explored a tremendous range of musical styles. American folk genres, Bosnian traditional and popular music and underground rock are the tip of an iceberg of musical experience.  Eriksen cut his teeth playing hardcore punk at NYC's legendary CBGB, but within a few years he could be found playing Carnatic music at weddings in southern India, singing shape-note hymns at Sacred Harp conventions in the American South and playing experimental noise at New York’s Lincoln Center. His unusual distinctions include being the only singer/guitarist/songwriter to have shared the stage with both Kurt Cobain and Doc Watson, and in the studio he has worked with T-Bone Burnett (Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?), Joe Boyd (Nick Drake, Fairport Convention) and Steve Albini (Nirvana, PJ Harvey).

For the past dozen years Tim Eriksen has taught Sacred Harp "singing schools" at colleges, arts centers and music festivals throughout North America and Europe. As a visiting professor he has taught courses in American and World Music at Dartmouth College and the University of Minnesota. He has collaborated in ethnomusicological fieldwork in Bosnia with his wife, Professor Mirjana Lausevic, as part of ongoing research into popular and traditional music in the former Yugoslavia.

Saturday: All-day singing with dinner on the grounds

Sunday: Our seventh "Unconventional Sunday"

The "Unconventional Sunday" offers a chance to share Sacred Harp singing with the Montclair Friend's Meething, who have hosted our convention and monthly singings for 10 years as of this weekend.

The morning will include an introduction to Sacred Harp singing taught by Roland Hutchinson, assisted by many experienced singers from the covention (9:15 am).  This session will be of particular use to those who are brand new to Sacred Harp singing, but everyone is invited come to support both the beginners and the teacher!

The singing class will be followed by the Meeting's regular First-day Meeting for Worship, which all who care to do so are invited to attend.

Following Meeting for Worship and a light lunch, our afternoon singing session will include singing from The Sacred Harp 1991 edition while also particularly encouraging the singing of new songs and music from other shape-note books, including the Cooper revision and Eclectic Harmony. Please supply 40 copies of any new songs or songs from any other shape-note books that you wish to lead. Please observe copyright restrictions and obtain permission before copying where required.

Logistical details and information

Books

Copies of The Sacred Harp tunebook (1991 edition, 585 pages, hardbound) will be available for loan or for purchase.

Kids

Children are welcome and encouraged to sing! Childcare for young children may be available; please inquire.

Getting there

The meethinghouse is easily reached by highway or by public transportation from all points. For map and detailed travel directions, please see our directions page.

Housing

Affordable hotel availability is limited, so please confirm as early as possible to assure receiving accommodation at the favorable rates. A group rate has been arranged at the Holiday Inn in Totowa, New Jersey (1 Rte. 46 West, 973 785-9000 or 800 443-5943, crestmotel@aol.com). Book at least two weeks in advance of the convention (i.e. by May 2) and ask for "rooms being held for Sacred Harp Singers" to receive the group rate. 

For questions about housing, or to inquire about housing with local singers, call 973 779-8290 or e-mail to smbjoyous@aol.com

What is Sacred Harp singing?

It is a uniquely American music with roots in colonial New England congregational singing and a continuous tradition preserved by both black and white churches in the rural South. Since the 1970s it has been sung in all parts of North America by people of remarkably diverse musical and religious backgrounds.

Our tunebook, The Sacred Harp (first published in 1844 and most recently revised in 1991), is written in "shape notes": standard musical notation supplemented with variously shaped noteheads that make it easier for beginners to learn the notes of the scale and to learn to read music. But you don't need to read music to join in singing with us!

We sing in the traditional way, sitting in four sections facing each other around a hollow square, beating time together, taking turns leading from the center of the square. Three- and four-part counterpoint--whether devised by largely self-taught "folk" composers or by disciples of the classical masters--is enriched and expanded to six parts by octave doublings. Some songs are lively, some sober; a strongly felt rhythmic pulse governs both.

We sing early versions of standard hymns such as Amazing Grace, Old Hundred, Wayfaring Stranger, and Wondrous Love, but much of the music in The Sacred Harp will be unfamiliar even to experienced choral singers: majestic ancient English and European psalm tunes, spirited 18th-century New England "fuging tunes," anthems, folk and gospel hymns, camp-meeting songs from the 19th-century frontier, and compositions in all of these traditional genres by the women and men who have preserved The Sacred Harp and its music through all the years of the 20th century.

For more information about Sacred Harp singing and Sacred Harp resources on the Internet, we recommend starting with Warren Steel's Sacred Harp page at the University of Mississippi.

Call or write us!

More information about Sacred Harp in New Jersey

Want to sing some more? Or get a head-start before the convention? Do you live in our area? Are you visiting? You are always welcome at our monthly Sacred Harp singings in Montclair, New Jersey.

You can also view our archive of pages for previous conventions and other past events.