Word: harped
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Actually, it was a resurrection. The singers--housewives, ex-punkers, Evangelicals, atheists, Jews and Buddhists waiting for their usual venue above a local bar to open--were devotees of a Christian four-part choral style called Sacred Harp (the name refers to the human voice and a songbook published in 1844). Once America's dominant religious music, it was eclipsed after the Civil War. By 1960, say scholars, as few as 1,000 people clustered in the Deep South knew the style...
...today there are some 20,000 devotees across the country singing songs like Pisgah and Weeping Sinners. The website fasola.org lists a "singing" near you on almost any weekend. A documentary, Awake My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp, is airing on more than 120 public TV stations, and an album is in the works featuring alt-folk god Sufjan Stevens, alt-country hero Jim Lauderdale and (!) Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones...
Nothing is weirder than Sacred Harp. Its favored subject matter--the pilgrim, the grave, Christ's blood--is stark; its style--severe fourths and otherworldly open fifths--has been obsolete for more than a century. Its notation, in which triangles, circles and squares indicate pitch, looks like cuneiform. Yet it exudes power and integrity. Five people sound like a choir; a dozen like a hundred. It is one of the most democratic choral forms: no audience, no permanent conductor--just people addressing one another...
Almost every revived American folk-music form was once recorded for the Library of Congress by musicologist Alan Lomax. He taped Sacred Harp in 1942 and '59. Unlike other finds such as Leadbelly, it failed to spark during the 1960s folk revival, but musicologists were infected. Now the form had imitable LPs and an academic beachhead...
...grace. The ballet “Emeralds,” staged by Heather Watts, featured the choreography of George Balanchine and solo performance of Amanda C. Lynch ’10. Lynch danced with remarkable poise, making full use of the stage as a flute and harp played in the background. The dancers’ dark green attire, provided by the Cincinnati Ballet, were reminiscent of childish Halloween costumes and left much to be desired. Still, the piece as a whole was pleasant to watch. Balanchine’s choreography made its second, less successful appearance of the evening...