Welcome!

Welcome to the weblog spot for the Moravian Music Foundation.

This blog will include posts about current MMF projects, new recordings and publications, little known facts about Moravian music, and other interesting tidbits of information about the musical life of American Moravians from the mid-18th century to today's Moravians.

Please feel free to post comments to any of our posts. What would you like to see us do? What do you feel we need to do differently? What can we improve on? Your comments don't have to be limited to the blog topic for the day.

For a crash course in Moravian music (also known as Moravian Music 101), check out the "Moravian music" article at Wikipedia.

On to the heart of this blog...(tooting our own horn!)

The Moravian Music Foundation is proud to announce a joyful partnership with the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park, Florida to produce a new recording of Moravian choral music and solo arias!

On February 25, 2007, the Winter Park Bach Festival featured an evening of Moravian choral and solo music, accompanied by orchestra. Recording sessions took place during the following week. Dr. John V. Sinclair, well-known to Moravian-music lovers as the continuing conductor of the Moravian Music Festivals, directed the choir and orchestra. The CD is projected for release in early summer.

In planning for the CD, Dr. Sinclair and Dr. Nola R. Knouse, director of the Moravian Music Foundation, nickednamed it the "Moravian Greatest Hits" project. Over the past four years, they discussed which of the many vocal pieces should be recorded. Some of the music included on the recording just received their first modern performance within the past 10 years. These include:

• Freydt, I Am the Shepherd (solo; first performed at the 1999 Moravian Music Festival)
• Herbst, None Among Us (first performed at the 1999 Moravian Music Festival)
• Jaeschke, The Lord Be Mindful of You (first performed at the 2006 Moravian Music Festival)
• Latrobe, By Your Meritorious Death (first performed at the 2003 Moravian Music Festival)
• Löwe, O Most Gracious, Welcome Child (first performed at the 1996 Moravian Music Festival)
• Peter, Let Everyone Have the Same Mind (duet;first performed at the 1999 Moravian Music Festival)

Many of the already-familiar works on the recording have been newly edited for this concert and CD. While this work might seem puzzling, it was necessary because of the evolution of music editorial practices over the past 60 years. These include the following "revamped oldies":

• Antes, Go, Congregation, Go with Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs
• Antes, Loveliest Immanuel
• Bechler, O the Blessedness Is Great
• Geisler, The Fruit of the Spirit
• Gregor, Glory to God in the Highest
• Gregor, In Slumber
• Leinbach, Hosanna
• Michael, My Soul Knows Purest Pleasure (also known as I Love to Dwell in Spirit)
• Peter, It Is a Precious Thing
• Peter, Sing, O Ye Heavens
  
• S. Peter, Behold a Sight
• Schultz, Thou Child Divine
• Sorensen, Bethany
• Wolf, Glory to Him

We know someone is reading this and saying, "But my favorite 'hit' isn't there!" We know. We couldn't include everything. But this leaves us plenty of music for a second "Moravian Hits" CD.

For this concert and recording, the Bach Festival Society was augmented by a small group of Moravian singers from around the country and by students from Rollins College, where John Sinclair is also the choral conductor. The Rollins College students also sang several works alone.

The CD will be offered in our online catalog as soon as it becomes available. The regular price will be $16 plus shipping and applicable sales tax. However, we are taking pre-orders until April 1 at a discounted price of $14 per CD, which includes shipping and taxes. Click HERE to download and print a pre-release order form.

In closing for this, our first blog post, we want to thank you for your interest in Moravian music. Please come back soon, and visit often!