Sacred Harp Singing Events in Belfast and Cork
Belfast and District Set Dancing Traditional Music Society are hosting a sacred harp singing weekend in Rosemary Hall, Belfast, from 14 to 16 October.
Sacred harp singing developed in the southern region of the United States in the nineteenth century, as a form of unaccompanied sacred choral music to be sung by congregations with little or no specialist musical training. The practice’s name derives from the title of the book of music from which its repertoire is drawn. It is part of one of the earliest immigrant musical traditions in the United States, the shape-note tradition, where traditional musical notation is simplified for vernacular use, being organised around either four or seven distinctive shapes, each of which shapes are assigned to distinctive solfège sylabbles, which are then sung as a way of learning the melodies.
The sacred harp singing weekend will be led by Aldo Thomas Ceresa, an instructor from the United States who has been composing music in the style of the sacred harp since 2005. A sacred harp workshop will take place on the evening of 14 October, whilst an all-day tutored sing is scheduled for Saturday, 15 October. The schedule for Sunday, 16 October, is yet to be finalised. The singing weekend will be closely followed by a Cork Sacred Harp singing day on 22 October, in Camden Palace, Cork.
Following the success of the 2011 Irish Sacred Harp Convention, which welcomed participants from the United States, Britain and Poland, the second Irish Sacred Harp Convention is scheduled to take place from 2 to 4 March 2012 in Cork.
Published on 12 October 2011