Worship Services Draw on Original Compositions

During the Sunday morning service on February 12, when the choir rose to sing the anthem after the sermon, the composer of the song was in their midst. A tenor in the choir and a music composition graduate student at Duke, Chris Williams, G ’28, wrote the piece, Endless Radiance

“I don’t think I have ever sung in a performance of a piece that I wrote,” Williams said after the service. “It was amazing; it sounded Chris Williams, G ’28 like nothing else ”

Williams is not the only person to make creative contributions to music in Chapel worship services. The services regularly employ texts, arrangements, and compositions by people in the Chapel community.

Another student who has had a composition debut in a Chapel service is Sarah Lapp, D ’24 The congregation sang her hymn Look at the Trees, an original text and tune, in the Sunday morning service on March 12. The text is based upon Psalm 1, and also the passage from John 4 that was read in the service. The hymn was composed as the final project of a hymnody course she took as a Divinity School student with Chapel Music Director Dr. Zebulon Highben

The Chapel’s recently revived hymn competition has also produced a text that has been sung multiple times in

Chapel services. Selected last year for its alignment with the Chapel’s value of Compassion, Brad Croushorn’s Open Wide the Doors connects the image of open doors and windows with a posture of open hearts and minds.

This year, the Chapel commissioned a hymn text to mark an emphasis on the value of Justice. Holy Wisdom, Holy Word by the writer and Lutheran pastor Susan Briehl debuted in the Chapel service on February 5 as the opening hymn.

The new texts and tunes are in addition to original translations of the Psalms by Divinity School Professor Ellen Davis as well as original anthems, service music, and hymn arrangements by Chapel Music staff, including Highben, Conductor-in-Residence Dr. Philip Cave, and Interim Chapel Organist Chad Fothergill, as well as Craig DeAlmeida, T ’99, G ’04, a longtime choir member. The graduate student Williams said his experience as a Chapel Choir member helped him in composing his anthem Endless Radiance

“There are a few moments where I have the whole choir dissolve and just have these single lines [of melody],” he said. “It’s really simple, but I know in this space all you need is a single line for it to start resonating.”