Past Programs
Choirs and Choral - 2008
The Call to Prayer
03/10/2008
The Islamic call to prayer, Qur'anic recitation, and Gregorian chant all share a belief in the power of the unadorned human voice. We'll hear from each of these ancient traditions, along with scholar and Islamic chaplain Dr Abdurrahman Asaroglu who reveals the history of adhan, the call to prayer.
A Walk on the Quiet Side
12/09/2008
Singer-songwriters take over this week, with Catholic rocker Mike Mangione, and Lou Reed, who has taken up various spiritual practices like tai chi and meditation. We also feature Texan-born Beth Nielsen Chapman and her Human Family Songbook, better known as her new album Prism, a collection of devotional music from the world's religious traditions. We dip into Beth's 2004 album Hymns, liturgical music sung mainly in Latin. She's described the music as the liturgical hits of her Catholic childhood. And there's room for a little Mozart.
David Fanshawe's <i>African Sanctus</i>, Pt 2
05/09/2008
A Masai milking song from Kenya and a lamentation for a dead fisherman in Uganda - these were some of the traditional songs of Africa recorded by composer David Fanshawe in the late 1960s and early 70s as he journeyed up the Nile from Cairo to Khartoum. As Fanshawe himself explains, songs like these inspired his setting of the Catholic Mass, African Sanctus, and opened up African music to the world.
David Fanshawe's <i>African Sanctus</i>, Pt 1
29/08/2008
First performed in 1972 African Sanctus is a setting of the Latin mass combining rock music with traditional African singing and drumming. English composer and explorer David Fanshawe recounts some of his amazing stories of travelling up the Nile and recording music in Egypt, Sudan, Uganda and Kenya in the 1960s and 70s.
Shomyo and Shakuhachi: Buddhist Ritual Sounds from Japan
04/07/2008
Sometimes called the Gregorian chant of Japan, shomyo is Buddhist ritual chant that goes back more than 1000 years. The two major schools of shomyo, Shingon and Tendai, were transmitted by Japanese priests from T'ang dynasty China in the 9th century. Beautiful and hypnotic, shomyo is the voice of a 1000 years. We'll also hear the Japanese bamboo flute, the shakuhachi, played by two masters currently in Australia for the World Shakuhachi Festival, Kaoru Kakizakai and Christopher Yohmei Blasdel. And one of Japan's greatest living shakuhachi players, Katsuya Yokoyama, will explain some of the Zen concepts underlying the honkyoku, the sacred music of Zen.
Sacred Harp Singing
27/06/2008
A celebration of the voice this week with choirs great and small, from the valleys of Wales to the green hills of Alabama where the tradition of Sacred Harp Singing lives on. Sometimes called 'shape note singing' because the musical notation uses special shapes to help the singers, Sacred Harp Singing is a Protestant style of four-part singing that takes its name from a famous hymn book published in America in 1844 called The Sacred Harp. The sound is raw and intense and after decades in decline has undergone a revival in the United States, and around the world, partly due to the success of the soundtrack to the film, Cold Mountain, which featured Sacred Harp Singing.
Wisdom of the Gong Master
20/06/2008
With his long grey hair and weathered face, Don Conreaux looks a lot like Willie Nelson. But he's no country singer. Don Conreaux is the Gong Master. "The Gong Master of Ceremonies", he adds. "Most everything that we do is a ceremony." Don is Artistic Director of the Mysterious Tremendum Sacred Tone Ensemble which travels the world providing social rites of passage. These events which might take place in a concert hall, in a desert or at Stonehenge combine sacred conch playing, overtone chanting, Himalayan Singing Bowl improvisations and gong performances. But these are no ordinary gongs. They are massive disc-shaped Tam Tams, one metre wide, made of copper, tin and nickel and struck with a felt-covered mallet. According to Don, the gong is directly descended from the Bronze Age 5000 years ago when they were used as a spiritual technology for healing by shamans. It's a lineage he happily accepts.
Don has been following the gong for more than 40 years and this week he shares the wisdom of a Gong Master.
Lutheran Hymns from Lake Wobegon
13/06/2008
Lake Wobegon is a small town in the American state of Minnesota that exists only in the mind of humorist and writer Garrison Keillor. In a rambling reminiscence that may or may not be true, Keillor explains the difficulties of keeping a music director at the nearby Holy Trinity Lutheran church.
Lutherans have a wonderful history of congregational hymn singing. And Luther himself said that "Next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise".
Among the hymns this week will be an arrangement of 'A Mighty Fortress is Our God' (Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott), written by Luther himself, and a favorite of Protestant congregations everywhere, 'Now Thank We All Our God' (Nun danket).
If you're a regular listener to Radio National you might have heard the Garrison Keillor Radio Show broadcast last Summer. It's an edited version of his long-running radio show on American public radio, A Prairie Home Companion.
As well as being host and writer of A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison presents The Writer's Almanac heard on public radio stations across the USA and around the world. And he's also the author of more than a dozen books, including Lake Wobegon Days. He was born in Minnesota in 1942 and while he now worships at an Episcopalian church in New York city where he lives, Garrison has in the past been a member of the Lutheran church, and was born into a family belonging to the Plymouth Brethren, a fundamentalist Christian denomination which he's since left.
Finally, to coincide with the Australian visit of the Dalai Lama this week, we hear chanting from the Gyuto Monks of Tibet, a Special Message recorded by His Holiness in 2000, and a Long Life Song for the Dalai Lama by Ama La Olo Bhuti.
The Soweto Gospel Choir
23/05/2008
There are almost 50 million South Africans and four out of every five are evangelical Christians. Church singing is at the heart of the Soweto Gospel Choir, and this week we hear the choir performing, and reflecting on, their unique combination of Protestant hymns and African tribal traditions.
Byzantine Chant on the Holy Mountain
25/04/2008
It's Good Friday for the Eastern Orthodox churches and we travel to Mt Athos in Greece to hear their 1000 year old tradition of Byzantine chant. We keep the Easter Vigil inside the Xenophontos Greek Orthodox Monastery, and hear from musician Stephan Micus who made his own pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain.
