Immanuel’s Land
When I was in high school, a colleague of my Pastor’s passed away and left behind an enormous library—something like 10,000 volumes. My Pastor enlisted the help of a few of the guys in the youth group to help him transport the books from the widow’s house to Master’s Seminary where they would become part of their collection.
Incidentally, the Dean of Master’s Seminary, John MacArthur sent a semi-truck on loan from one of his parishioners, a high up mucky-muck in the Hershey chocolate company. For hours we loaded books onto this truck while smelling the sweet aromas of our favorite chocolate bars. Anyway, in thanks for our help, we were each allowed to keep one book. My choice? A little black, leather-bound edition of The Christian Book of Mystic Verse compiled by A.W. Tozer. Inside the pages of this collection, along with many other deeply formative texts, I discovered Ann Cousin’s Immanuel’s Land. It contains nineteen stanzas and is truly a worthwhile journey to read them all.
I set several of the poems in this little black bound book that still sits on my shelf and whose cover is now barely hanging on. This continues to be one of the favorite melodies I have ever written. The recording is from our album Sleep Easy which you can purchase here.
Blessed is She (Song of Elizabeth)
During Advent, 2007, we had Wednesday night worship services focusing on the experience of Mary, Jesus’ mother, and Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother. While there are many settings of Mary’s song, the Magnificat, we had trouble finding a setting of Elizabeth’s song from Luke 1:41-45. As is often the case, I wrote this song because it seems that no one else had written one on the topic.
This arrangement is for SATB with a Soprano cantor and a piano accompaniment. Other instruments can easily be added—I think we used a djembe, guitar, and a cello when we did it.
SATB Refrain
Full Score
Lyrics
Angels Watching Over Me
This is an SATB arrangement I wrote for an old traditional spiritual. My mother used to sing it before bed to my brothers and I when we were young. I transcribed the melody as I remembered it and wrote the four-part.
The recording is from our new album, Sleep Easy. It features my wife, Bonnie on Soprano and our good friends Sara Masterson Smith and Steve Smith on Alto, and bass respectively. Another good friend, Steve Williamson—the Worship Arts Pastor and my supervisor at church—sings tenor. We recorded it with all four vocalist together singing into a Blumlein Pair mic setup and performing the whole track in a single take. I think you can hear the intimacy and natural give and take of everyone singing together and blending live.
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