22
Feature
WEDNESDAY 2 September 2020
Grant Norsworthy, the man behind congregations across New Zealand forming a virtual choir to unite their voices in The Blessing. Photo: Supplied.
Lighting up Nelson, Richmond and Tasman
Virtual choir performs The Blessing
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Grant Horsworthy has a lifetime of musical endeavours behind him, but says pulling the video recording The Blessing Aotearoa together has been the most rewarding musical thing he’s been involved in. Originally an Austral-
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ian who spent years with his family living and working in Nashville, he’s a Grammy nominee who describes himself as a speaker, teacher, musician, and family man. He lives with his family in the Upper Moutere where his children’s maternal grandparents are from. This is where he operates his Global Ministry, but Grant has ministered in over 20 countries, mostly behind his bass guitar but not always, he says. “I first saw a virtual choir on Youtube and was so impressed with the picture of unity and worship that it portrayed. That first impression of the video stayed with Grant and it was Stephen Maina of the Nelson Diocese of the Angli-
can Church who original suggestion that he should create a virtual choir for The Blessing in New Zealand. Grant looked into it further and decided that, as nobody had done one in New Zealand, it would be great to integrate the Christian community nationally for the first time in this way. He put his feelers out into the community asking for recordings of The Blessing. He was met with mostly excitement but some trepidation and in his imagination hoped he’d receive about 30 or 40 recordings to work with. In the end, he received about 200 video submissions and took 3 months to piece the video together. His wife Brooke
worked alongside him, as did a large number of other musicians and technicians. “It was a huge team effort, I was only steering the ship,” says Grant. He enlisted the help from what he says is a huge amount of world-class talent living in the Tasman region, of which there were five audio technicians, two video editors, several admins, and some cultural advisors, used on The Blessing video. “I had to own up to my own ignorance,” says Grant. Locals from Te Āwhina Marae, Sean Delaney, and Callum O’Leary, assisted Grant and added something deep and spiritual from Maori culture into the song.