Curious Christian

I was listening to the podcast of Temple Music in the Time of Jesus from The Spirit of Things at the start of the week and thought I must do a blog post on this.

Before its destruction by the Romans in 70AD, the Temple of Jerusalem was where Jews gathered to praise the Lord and where Jesus came to teach. Ancient records show that musicians and singers in the hundreds gathered on the Temple mount. Music historian, composer and singer, Kim Cunio, has recreated this sacred music and performs it, along with soprano Heather Lee and musicians Llew Kiek and Tunji Beier.

I wondered about the accuracy recreation – there were obviously some adaptions – but that aside the performance (recorded at Glebe Uniting Church if I recall correctly) encouraged me to delve further into something I’d been mulling over in terms of alternative worship music. Basically I was thinking of mixing some spiritual poetry into some ambient tracks, possibly even some with an eastern flavour, and as it turned out some of these recreations came within shouting distance of what I’d been imagining.

However, given I got my long awaited djumbe drum this Christmas exploring how that can be used in worship music will probably be my first project.

Another program I expect i should listen to is Music of The Psalms: Four Great Traditions. The Spirit of Things describes it as a musical journey featuring Anglican, Greek Orthodox, Catholic and Jewish choirs singing from the Book of Psalms.