The Online Program of events for the SEM 2025 Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early October.
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Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 26th Aug 2025, 07:02:07pm EDT
05B: Participatory Sacred Harp Singing and Discussion on Editing The Sacred Harp: 2025 Edition
Time:
Friday, 24/Oct/2025:
8:30am - 10:30am
Session Chair: Jesse P. Karlsberg, Emory University
Location:M-102
Marquis Level
75
Presentations
Participatory Sacred Harp Singing and Discussion on Editing The Sacred Harp: 2025 Edition
Chair(s): Jesse P. Karlsberg (Emory University)
This workshop pairs a Sacred Harp singing from the new Sacred Harp: 2025 Edition, published in September 2025, with a moderated discussion with Sacred Harp singers who played key roles in the tunebook revision to explore how participants in this music culture understand this once-in-a-generation process of renewal. First published in 1844, The Sacred Harp has been sung from continuously and today sits at the center of a transnational music culture. The three workshop leaders are longtime Sacred Harp singers and include the head of the revision-music committee that oversaw the project, the author of the new “Rudiments of Music,” its pedagogical text, and a composer with multiple new songs in the revision written in tunebook’s dispersed harmony style. Panelists will provide practitioners’ perspectives on topics explored in ethnomusicological and related interdisciplinary literature on Sacred Harp singing including songbook editing (Stecker 2019; Karlsberg 2015; Hamrick 1995; Beale 1994), pedagogy (Malone 2009; Kelton 1985; Mitchell 1976), composition (Davis 2016; McKenzie 1989), and navigating Sacred Harp’s pluralistic global network in the twenty-first century (Lueck 2016; Clawson 2011; Miller 2008). After a 45-minute moderated discussion, SEM attendees, panelists, and Atlanta-area Sacred Harp singers will hold a 75-minute Sacred Harp singing from the new tunebook. Held just a month after the book’s publication, this session offers a unique opportunity to sing from the new Sacred Harp tunebook and hear from the people who created it.
Presentations in the Session
N/A
David Ivey Sacred Harp Musical Heritage Association
N/A
N/A
Lauren Bock Sacred Harp Musical Heritage Association