Making A Joyful Noise

Sing God a brand-new song!

Earth and everything in it, sing!

Sing to God – worship God! 

Psalm 96:1-2

We’re currently in the middle of a season of concerts and musicals. It is incredibly enjoyable to be an audience member at this time of year, seeing the fruits of many, many sessions of practice, rehearsal and earlier, smaller scale performances.

The Celebration of Song was held on Wednesday evening. There were so many elements of the performances that brought great pleasure to the audience, where does one start?

I’ll give it go – 

1. Watching our Foundation Vocal Ensemble – newly created to cater for the booming popularity of choral participation in Primary, giving FULL voice to their triplet of songs – the smiles and the engagement delighted the audience.
2. How beautiful was the interplay of video footage of giant trees and the harmonic rendition of Giant of the Forest by the Primary Vocal Ensemble. And how accomplished were they as they sung the deeply moving traditional Zulu spiritual song.
3. Seeing in the Intermediate Vocal Ensemble a maturation and deep appreciation of the subtleties in the music they were performing – these students are reaping the benefits of expert instruction under the gentle, focused direction of the music staff.  And what a wonderful blend of so many students who also excel in sport, academics and other artistic pursuits.
4. The multiplicity of the soloists on offer during the Advanced Vocal Ensemble’s trio of items spoke to the entire group’s performance certainty and the remarkable array of talent on offer throughout the whole ensemble. The genre they sung from – three distinctly different ones – pointed to how accomplished this group has become.
5. Our nationally rated “Altonatives” group finished off the night. Yet again, after an annual restocking, this iteration of performers took their style and quality to another level. The vocal range of all the members was on full display; their poise and extraordinary competence had all present marvelling at their remarkable capacity as a group and individuals.
6. Now a critical element of all our vocal concerts is the participation, and leadership, of our Worship Bands. How good, and appropriate, was it to start with the entire audience joining in full voice to worship God through songs of praise? To hear multi-layered harmonies wafting through the sounds from the audience, as folk brought their own church’s expression of the songs into our singing together – it was a joyful experience.
7. I have attended performance evenings in seven different schools – many of them schools with a high skill performance culture. What marks ours as entirely different is that – as much in these evenings as at any other time – students, staff and families together populate these evenings with lived out experiences of humility, joy and giving glory to God our creator as the source of all that is good and wholesome.

God has gifted our students with remarkable gifts. I am so thankful for the way the music department expresses this in their own internal departmental mission statement:

As a Christ-centred learning community, we believe we are called to identify, develop and utilise our gifts and talents. As we do this it is not only an act of worship in itself, it’s an acknowledgement of the Gift Giver.  The DCC music department believe that God has created and blessed every one of His children and formed them in a way that reflects His true desire and plans for us.

It’s a brilliant framework for so much of what we do as God’s community together.

Shalom.