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The church is a small Congregationalist-style wooden building with a balcony along three sides of the interior space that provides excellent acoustics for singing. The balcony also houses a fine mechanical-action organ of 19 ranks in the Dutch/North German baroque style (Flentrop 1977), which of course we will not be using.
Services are at 9:15 and 11:00 am. Singers are requested to be in place and ready to start singing as a prelude to the service at 9 am sharp.
All of the music for this day will be shape-note music, most of it from The Sacred Harp 1991.
At each service, we will sing four hymns with the congregation and choir, chosen from among the shape-note tunes represented in the current Unitarian hymnal Singing the Living Tradition. (We will, however, sing the traditional musical settings from The Sacred Harp 1991 and other sources rather than the much-revised hymnal settings.) We will also sing a similar number of songs on our own (possibly joined by members of the choir) for the congregation to listen to.
Singing from The Sacred Harp 1991 with rotating leaders will serve as prelude and postlude music for both services.
Following the services, a light lunch will be provided and we will continue singing until about 2:30 pm with rotating leaders. (Those unable to attend the morning services are welcome to join the afternoon singing, starting shortly after 12:00 noon.) It is suggested that those who wish to sing new songs or songs from books other than The Sacred Harp 1991 bring them to this session if possible.
Travel directions (by car and public transportation) and a map are now available on our directions page.
Questions about this singing should be directed to Roland Hutchinson (201 509-2165; rhutchin@email.njin.net), who is organizing the music and serving as liaison with the Unitarian Church in Summit.
[PLEASE NOTE: E-MAIL ADDRESSES GIVEN IN THIS DOCUMENT, WRITTEN
IN 1996, ARE NOW OBSOLETE. WRITE TO gssh@altavista.net FOR MORE
INFORMATION.]
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