Music Notes
by Karla Porter
Nativity Music Director

A Letter to the Nativity Congregation:

Dear friends in Christ,

I want to THANK YOU for supporting my trip to the annual conference of The Hymn Society of the United States and Canada. The conference was held in Boston on the campus of Boston University and was co-sponsored by the BU School of Theology.

We opened each day with morning prayer, then on to various workshops held throughout the day. The workshops were many and varied – everything from "Hymn Traditions of Eastern Europe" to "Issues in the Use of Contemporary Music." Each evening there was a hymn sing and because there were approximately 300 attendees at the conference, we became a 300 voice choir. And we ended the day with night prayer – and more singing!

All in all, we sang approximately 150 hymns in the four days and I probably knew only about 10 of them. That gives you some idea of how vast our hymn traditions are. For those of you who know Boston, we worshipped and sang in the Old South Meeting House, the Park Street Church, Tremont Temple, King's Chapel, Marsh Chapel at Boston University, and St. Paul's Cathedral.

I am always very stimulated by attending these conferences; I enjoy all aspects—meeting new people, the workshops, learning new songs. I'm able to expand my vision, and, hopefully, extend that to the congregation in and through the music in our corporate worship. Thank you once again for making my trip possible.

In Jesus' name,
Karla Porter