Something for Thursday

My alma mater, Wartburg College, was noted for the very high quality of its vocal music groups -- still is, I suppose. Chief among these was the Wartburg Choir. I had the privilege of going on tour with the Choir in my freshman year, as they did a piece that actually included a small brass ensemble. It was a setting of my least favorite hymn of all time, "A Mighty Fortress", but that was a small price to pay to get to hear these people on a nightly basis.

The choir closed out each concert in the same way, offering this unimaginably gorgeous setting of a spiritual as their encore. I couldn't find a video of the actual Wartburg Choir doing it, but I did find this amazing high school chorus doing the piece. Here's "Give Me Jesus".



I don't often associate pieces of music with things -- even the Star Wars score has become an abstract entity for me over the years -- but this is one of the rare works that transports me back to another time and another place.