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Gospel Jihad

from Ghostly Psalms by Philip Blackburn

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about

With a family ancestry that includes venerable hymn writers Isaac Watts and George Stebbins, what's an apostate 21st century composer to do? In a world animated by holy wars, is peaceful, engaged equilibrium — let alone resolution — possible? Gospel Jihad, for two choirs, presents the problem in musical and psychological terms. I am often surprised at how much sacred music is blatantly pro-religious; it seems to me that any gods worth their salt would welcome a little critique and skepticism.

I started by selecting some well-known hymn texts — the most bellicose I could find, such as "Onward, Christian Soldiers," "There is a Fountain Filled with Blood," "The Fight is On," and "The Son of God goes Forth to War." One choir articulates these zealously, in various outwardly-focused, fire-and-brimstone ways, while the other singers are asked to choose their own personal favorite hymns (melody and all). This latter choir, however, sings to themselves, super slow, while processing, stripping the texts of intelligibility and leaving nothing but a dense holy glow behind. The two groups — extravert and introvert respectively, poised in harmonious stand-off — model some of the possible positions one might take regarding the multiple theo-militias that have been making news around the world for so long now.

credits

from Ghostly Psalms, released March 27, 2021
The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge. Tim Brown, director

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Philip Blackburn Saint Paul, Minnesota

Philip Blackburn was born in Cambridge, England, and studied music there and at the University of Iowa with Kenneth Gaburo. He is a public artist specializing in sound — a composer/environmental sound-artist. Blackburn’s works have been heard in ships’ harbors, state fairs, forests, and coming out of storm sewers, as well as in galleries, parking lots, and on concert stages.

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