Four Pieces From Vivaldi's Gloria.

Here are four great pieces of choral music I'm doing with a six week Christmas choir. The Northwoods Conservatory Choir in Minoqua WI. We rehearse 8 times in six weeks and then perform one Sun. afternoon at 1:oo. I do two short choirs a year to work on my singing voice and because now I'm hooked on them. It's great fun if you've got a penchant for playing and singing music. I was stunned to find out when I showed up the first night that it was all christian inspirational music; at this secular musical institution. I only went because it was organized by some folks who I sing with in a christian choir during the spring. I can't believe the excellent musical selections we're doing. I'm absolutely loving it. So I thought I'd start to share them with you here.

What an amazing resource this Rhapsody.com was for me. I came away from the first rehearsal with 8 complex pieces of choral music that I had to learn and 10 minutes after returning home I found most of them on this site after just 'searching' the author and title. I read music but can learn much quicker by ear. Hope this stuff adds to your library of good Christmas tunes. Vivaldi's bio is also very interesting.

In order to listen to each one of these, you'll click on the title below, which will take you to the right page, and then will have to scroll down to, and click on, the 'selected track' which will be highlighted for you.

Gloria in excelsis Deo

Et in terra pax

Gloria in D, RV589 -...

Cum Sancto Spiritu

(I included the four that don't remind a person of Christmas as much because it's a little early for me to start thinking much about it.)

The other neat thing to do, while you're at Rhapsody looking at their music, is to add some that you like to your 'favorites' page for easy access to perhaps raise your spirits at certain times(or even to vanquish some other moldy old seasonal tune out of your head with).

Peace and joy and hope and most of all love as we get closer to the highly stress filled dual-natured Chrismas season. Lots of hard work ahead. Joy as well, with the mind set on the Spirit. Let me echo a hardy praise God! Todd

Not a Bad Day For Evangelism.

A few loose ends came together for us and my pastor's sermons are now digital. This is a good day for evangelism. I'm still pinching myself to make sure Jeff is really here in this way out-of-the-way northwoods community that I likewise chose to settle in, and is teaching the bible very commendably. And now is he not only less isolated evangelically but I won't have to be sending as many tapes in the mail or spending as much of the church's money.

For the past three or four years Pastor Jeff has been working his flock through the bible on Sundays at roughly a chapter a week, the first half hour looking at the chapter and the second looking at it's living relevance to life today and the rest of Christ's living word, in an effort to build up and strengthen his church as people prepared to serve and glorify the Lord in their lives.

This would be the link to his first digital sermon:
http://www.rhinelanderbible.org/serm1029.html

He's managed to do it at virtually no expense by using the freely available resources of the internet, and alot of tenacity.