Celebrate and explore Mennonite related music across ... · Mennonite Music Beyond Borders. Sound...

1 - Sound in the Lands Sound in the Lands - 1

June 4-8, 2009

Conrad Grebel University College University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Celebrate and explore Mennonite related music across borders and boundaries!

2 - Sound in the Lands2 - Sound in the Lands Sound in the Lands - 3


June 4-8, 2009Conrad Grebel University College

Contents

About Conrad Grebel...................................................... page 4Schedule ........................................................................ page 7Abstracts ........................................................................ page 14Biographies .................................................................... page 33Sponsors ........................................................................ page 47Maps .............................................................................. page 49


Conrad Grebel University College is a liberal arts college founded by the Mennonite church and affiliated with the University of Waterloo. The mission and programs of the College are rooted in and inspired by its Christian identity and its Anabaptist/Mennonite heritage. The College aims to seek wisdom, nurture faith, and pursue justice and peace in service to church and society.

Conrad Grebel University College challenges and inspires mind and spirit through both its academic and residence programs.

The College offers a rich variety of undergraduate courses in Arts and is home to the University’s BA programs in both Music and Peace and Conflict Studies. A graduate program in Theological Studies engages students in the study of faith and spirituality and prepares them for church ministries or doctoral studies. The library and archives support the College’s teaching and research, particularly in music, peace, and Mennonite studies.

Grebel’s residential and student services programs build a unique sense of community by providing a supportive and stimulating environment for personal, social, intellectual, and spiritual growth and leadership development.

The College’s core values grow out of its identity and mission:

Generosity • Global engagement • Compassionate service • Active peacemaking • Responsible citizenship • Stewardship of creation •

Inspired teaching • Scholarly excellence • Community building • Leadership development • Faith formation • Creativity •

Identity & Mission

Conrad Grebel University College

Values

Programs

mind andC H A L L E N G I N G

spirit


About the Music DepartmentConrad Grebel University College has been responsible for offering courses and extra-curricular programmes in Music to the wider University of Waterloo since the 1960’s. Approval of the B.A. programmes in Music was given in 1974. Since that time, hundreds of students have graduated from the University of Waterloo with degrees in Music.The Music Department includes a wide range of students. Some students choose to major or minor in music. Other students choose to take only a few music courses or perhaps participate in an ensemble during one or more terms. Music students here are generally interested both in making music and in ask-ing questions about music’s relevance to society. Many of our music majors have gone on to teacher training, pursued graduate school, worked as private music teachers, or became performers and composers. Still others have found work in the music industry in the areas of software development and recording technology.The Music Department has grown to a size where it is large enough to create an interesting and vibrant community, but still small enough that it is possible to get to know each student, staff, and faculty member personally. At present, we have approximately 40 majors and 60 minors in the department.

Welcome from Carol Ann WeaverIt is with the greatest pleasure that I welcome you to Sound in the Lands 2009 Festival/Conference – Mennonite Music Beyond Borders. We are bringing back many of the same people who came to Sound in the Land 2004, with all of the same qualities of musicianship and scholarship, plus many new people and new music from different parts of the world. We anticipate a vibrant, joyous atmosphere where music and invaluable dialogues can occur. Call this a Mennonite festival, a world music-fest, a song-fest, Mennofolk blast, a concert feast, a choral extravaganza, an academic conference where musicologists and ethnomusicologists rub shoulders with composers, folk musicians, theologians, historians....or call this yet one more “Sound in the Lands” where our planet shrinks, our embrace expands, and for one short four-day period, we come together to create new harmonies and rhythms which have not yet been heard!


About Sound in the Lands 2009 Mennonite Music Beyond Borders Sound in the Lands 2009 June 4-8 at Conrad Grebel University College, explores Mennonite music across borders and boundaries. Sound in the Lands is both a festival, with workshops, Mennofolk performances, concerts, and singing sessions; and an academic conference, with papers and presentations that address issues of Mennonite–related peoples and their music-making locally and globally. A sequel to Sound in the Land 2004, Sound in the Lands 2009 welcomes a yet broader perspective of Mennonite music from around the world, reflecting part of the cross-cultural and international diversity of Mennonites today. It would be impossible to bring in people from every country where Mennonites are involved, but Sound in the Lands highlights various distinct identities (ranging from Pennsylvania Amish to Old Colony Mennonites) within North America and from Cuba, Mexico, South Africa, Zimbabwe, D.R Congo, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Middle East as some of the places where Mennonites have been working and living for decades. The event features music by Mennonite composers, songwriters and musicians in all forms of classical, experimental, multimedia, jazz, vernacular, improvisation, folk, popular, alternative, and world music genres, with newly commissioned compositions performed, and with collaborative work occurring among musicians from around the world. While exploring wide varieties of Mennonite-related music, both North American and international, we anticipate novel interactions, spontaneous creations, and new cross-cultural understandings. A second-time recipient of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant, Sound in the Lands is receiving ongoing critical acclaim and support. Keynote speakers Alice Parker – acclaimed American composer and choral conductor – and Mary Oyer – professor emerita from Goshen College, conductor, song leader, hymnologist and African music specialist – are willing to lead us ahead into this dancing new world of cross-cultural fusions and musical magic!


Sound in the Lands 2009 Festival/Conference Mennonite Music across Borders Schedule

OngoingDining Room

Artwork on display by Jan Fretz

Daily until 10:30Atrium

Self-serve artist merchandise sale table

Thursday and Fridayuntil 4:30 Atrium

“Catching ‘the sweet though far off hymn’: An exhibit of music from the Mennonite Archives of Ontario” located in the exhibit cases off of the atrium

THURSDAY, JUNE 41:00 – 2:00 Atrium

Arrival, Registration, pick up coffee

2:00 – 4:00 Chapel

Conference Welcome by Ronald Mathies, Acting President of Conrad Grebel University College

Workshop Session I: Rubber Meeting the Road – Improvisations and Mennonite Music at the Crossroads Chair, Wendy Chappell-Dick

Bryan Moyer Suderman • “Community Supported Music: An Alternative Model for the Arts”Bush Wiebe • “Mennonite Roots Music – Becoming a ‘Mennist to Society’”Trevor Bechtel • “Writing the Anabaptist Bestiary Project”Frances Miller • “Story, Sound, Shape – Approaches to Improvisation”

4:00 – 6:00Chapel Great Hall

Mennofolk concerts folk, roots, jazz North America & Africa

Chapel: 4:00 Todd Schiedel 4:45 Dale Nikkel 5:30 Spencer Cunningham

Great Hall:4:30 Lyle Friesen and Bob Janzen5:15 Anabaptist Beastiary Project


6:00 – 7:00Dining Room

Dinner

7:00 – 12:00ChapelGreat Hall

Mennofolk concerts continue

Chapel: 7:15 Annie James Project8:00 Frances Miller 8:45 Andru Bemis 9:30 The Land

Great Hall:7:00 Chuckee and the Crawdaddies7:45 Bush Wiebe8:30 Rendezvous (Gundys & Schermbrucker)9:15 Carol Ann Weaver, Rebecca Campbell, Thandeka Mabuza, Mageshen Naidoo, Prince Bulo, Arun Pal10:00 BlankBlueSky10:45 Moglee

FRIDAY, JUNE 58:30 – 10:30Great Hall

Conference Session I: Mennonite Worship Wars/Questions of Musical Genre in Mennonite Settings Chair, Anna Janecek

Geraldine Balzer • “The Preservation of a Mennonite Hymn-Singing Tradition”Jonathan Dueck • “Those Mediated Mennonites: Church-Music Genres As Cosmopolitanism” Sarah Kathleen Johnson • “The Political Theology of Hymnal: A Worship Book”Yi-Ting Huang • “Plain Living and Simple Deeds: The Role and Meaning of a Music Education in the Old Order Amish Community” Myron Sauder • “‘Mind the Slurs’: The Unusual Style of River Brethren Hymnody”

10:30 – 11:00 Atrium

Coffee break


11:00 – 1:00Great Hall

Conference Session II: From Africa and the Middle East – Listening for Songs, Messages and Justice Chair, Doreen Klassen

Dorothy Jean Weaver • “Middle East Soundings: Mennonite Sojourn, Musical Sustenance”Alina Balzer-Peters • “Songs of Struggle – Anabaptists in the Apartheid?” Jennifer Wiebe • “Afrikaners, Mennonites, and Music of the Anti-Conscription”Cari Friesen • “Processes of Contextualization: Mennonite Music in Burkina Faso”James Krabill • “‘I Want to Join Your Community, But Do I Have To Learn your Music?’ – Six Stages of Music Development in Churches of the Global South”


Lunch

2:00 – 2:30Chapel

Workshop Session II: Teaching through Song Chair, Fred MartinAnn Schultz with Rockway Mennnonite Collegiate Senior Choir “Allowing Students to Discover New Sound in Their Lands”


Conference Session III: Mennonite Music Makers – Creating Mennonite Musical Communities and Texts Chair, Marlene Epp

Judith Klassen • “‘Wie han seeja je’daunst!’ (‘We Really Danced!’) – Remembering Music and Dance in Mennonite Mexico”Peter Letkemann • “Music, Suffering, and Mennonite Identity in Soviet Society - Continuity and Discontinuity, 1917-1945”John Horst • “The Role of Music in The Mennonite Hour Broadcast” Wendy Chappell-Dick • “Exploring the Mennofolk Festivals Using the Lens of Metaphor” Doreen Klassen • “‘I Guess We Should Use Some Drums’ – Negotiating Applied Ethnomusicology in an Intercultural Mennonite Context”

4:30 – 5:00 Atrium

Coffee


5:00 – 6:30 Great Hall

Keynote Event Host, James Pankratz

Performance: Irmgard Baerg and Bonnie Loewen• “Habits of the Hands -– Mennonite Dialogues of Poet and Pianist”Keynote address: Alice Parker• “The Search for Language: Words and Music in the Coming Years”


Pre-Dinner Punch & Dinner

8:00 – 10:00Chapel

Chamber Music ConcertMusic by Joanne Bender, Larry Warkentin, Janet Peachey, Larry Nickel, Leonard Enns, Carol Ann Weaver, including World Premiere of Sound in the Lands Commission by Joanne Bender

10:00 – 11:30Chapel

Improv, Jazz, Jam, TBA Frances Miller, Mark Hartman, Mageshen Naidoo, Prince Bulo, others – improv session

SATURDAY, JUNE 68:30 – 10:15Great Hall

Conference Session IV: Mennonite Composers Searching for Voice and Venue in a Fractured World Chair, Leonard Enns

Stephanie Martin • “High Church Liturgy and Low Church Mennonite Song – Toward Creating Choral Responses”Janet Peachey • “Composing for Choir/Rediscovering Musical Roots – Words from a Mennonite Composer”Larry Warkentin • “Art or Popular Music? – Finding Appropriate Responses to our Fractured World”Larry Nickel • “Requiem for Peace – Composing a Multi-Cultural Work”

10:15 –10:45 Atrium

Coffee break


10:45 – 12:30Chapel

Conference Session V: Composition Across the Arts – Mennonite Composers, Poets and Painters Chair, Jon Dueck

Jon Liechty • “Plum Point Fantasy as a Way of Hearing the World – Words from a Composer”Magdalene Redekop • “Haunted by Hymns: Music in ‘Mennonite’ Poetry” Jeff Gundy • “Muse/Poetry/Music”Carol Ann Weaver with Rebecca Campbell • “Those Crazy Stories Becoming Song”

12:30 – 12:45Great Hall

Festival Choir Mini-Rehearsal 1 a voluntary choir open to all

12:30 – 1:30 Dining Room

Lunch


Conference Session VI: Direct from Cuba and Africa – International Music and Worship Styles Today (with live music) Chair, Carol Ann Weaver

Amós• Lópas “Cuban and Latin American Church Music – Insights from a Troubadour”Maurice Mondengo • “Understanding African Diversities and Daring to Create Music in Response to an African World”Mageshen Naidoo • “When Jazz Reaches the Church – South Africa Worship Styles and the Role of the Contemporary Musician”Prince Bulo • “Notes from a Bassist: Music in Contemporary African Worship Settings”Thandeka Mabuza • “From Zulu to Mennonite – Township Hymns In Transit”

4:00 – 4:30Atrium

Coffee Break


4:30 – 6:00Chapel

Matinee Mini ConcertsHost, Maureen EppMini-Concert 1 Karin Redekopp Edwards with Mark Edwards“Two Pianos - Two Pianists – A Medium for Mennonite ‘Messages’”Mini-Concert 2 Dennis Bender, bass “The Songs of Larry Warkentin and the Russian Mennonite Experience” Mini-Concert 3 Ben Bolt-Martin, cello “From Tiegenhagen with Hope” – Music of Leonard Enns


Festival Choir Mini-Rehearsal 2 a voluntary choir open to all


Conference Banquet


World Music Collaborative Concert Music by Amós Lópas, Maurice Mondengo, Thandeka Mabuza, Mageshen Naidoo, Prince Bulo, Carol Ann Weaver, and others

SUNDAY, JUNE 710:00 – 12:00Detweiler Meeting House, Roseville(see map at back - bus available at 9:15)

Hymns and Words – Singing Session I Hymns – • Harmonia Sacra and more Mary Oyer and other song leadersPhilip Stoltzfus • “The Performing God: Toward a Theology of Mennonite Hymn Singing” Cheryl Denise • “Toil and Grace” – poetic readings

12:30 – 2:00 Dining room

Lunch


Sound in the Lands Discussion (and lunch) an informal, round-table dinner discussion by any interested persons about how/when/where to shape the next Sound in the Lands. Come with ideas, questions, brain-storms!



Music from Around the World – Singing Session IIHost, Doreen Klassen

choral, gospel, contemporary, congregational singing, • with Soul Influence, Amós Lópas, Thandeka Mabuza, Mageshen Naidoo, Prince Bulo, Maurice Mondengo, othersMarilyn Hauser-Hamm • “Global Singing in a Church-wide Experience” (with singing)Capstone Address: Mary Oyer• “International Mennonite Music-Making as Cross-Cultural Experience” (with group singing)


Documentary DVD The Ben Horch Story by Peter Letkemann


Dinner (Faspa)

8:00 – 10:00First United Church, Waterloo(see map at back)

Concert of Choral Music with Menno Singers, Rockway Mennonite Collegiate Senior Choir, Soul Influence (from Zimbabwe); Sound in the Lands choral commissions by Alice Parker, Janet Peachey, Jeff Enns, and other Mennonite choral compositions by Maurice Mondengo, John Horst, Larry Nickel, Leonard Enns, Carol Ann WeaverReception following the concert

MONDAY, JUNE 88:00Dining Room

Breakfast and musical farewell - with different versions of “God Be With You Until We Meet Again”

Think about returning for Sound in the Lands, June 2013


Abstracts for Conference/Workshop Sessions & Mini-Concerts

THURSDAY, JUNE 42:00 – 4:00 Chapel

Workshop Session I: Rubber Meeting the Road – Improvisations and Mennonite Music at the Crossroads Chair, Wendy Chappell-Dick

Bryan Moyer Suderman “Community Supported Music: Alternative Model for Arts” In this digital age it has become a truism that “the music industry is in trouble,” and there has been an explosion of “innovative” approaches to the creation, marketing and distribution of music. My presentation will articulate an alternative business model for the arts that is based on a different set of assumptions than the “tour! tour! tour! sell! sell! sell!” mainstream model. “Community Supported Music” is built on the “Community Supported Agriculture” model, a different way of structuring the relationship between “producer” and “consumer” as partners in a vital community process. Having operated Community Supported Music since 2006, my presentation will invite reflection on the potential of this model for artists seeking to live out their artistic vocation in a way that is more healthy and sustainable in personal, relational, spiritual, ecological, and economic terms.

Bush Wiebe “Mennonite Roots Music – Becoming a ‘Mennist to Society’”Within this presentation I would like to explore a new understanding of Mennonite culture through a traditional blues paradigm. There is often a stigma associated with being Mennonite and a feeling that Mennonites don’t quite “fit in,” within the greater culture. Mennonites often tend to respond in one of three ways, either by withdrawing from the outer world; by clinging to the word “Mennonite” which can lead to overbearing traditionalism, creative stagnation, and overly self-conscience humor; or by abandoning Mennonite identity entirely and adopting a new culture, resulting in the loss of our unique voice and story. The story of the Mennonites and the history of the blues are surprisingly similar; in this paper I will look at that relationship and suggest ways in which Mennonites could possibly borrow from the blues and become a “Mennist to Society.”


Thursday, June 4 continuedTrevor Bechtel “Writing the Anabaptist Bestiary Project”This workshop will explore the interconnections between academic theology, rock and roll, and spirituality in three interrelated sections. The works of artists like Bruce Cock-burn, The New Pornographers, Rilo Kiley, Rainer Maria and My Bloody Valentine will be considered theologically and spiritually. The use of original rock and roll as a vehicle for communicating theology will then be explored, with particular emphasis on the Anabaptist Bestiary Project, a research and musical project of mine involving Bluffton University stu-dents. The workshop will conclude with a detailed exegesis of one of songs from the Anabaptist Bestiary Project.

Frances Miller “Story, Sound, Shape – Approaches to Improvisation”Improvisation is increasingly being recognized as an aes-thetic and therapeutic activity, enabling people to reach deep into the soul, discovering new spiritual concepts and meanings. I will explore the connection of sound and story within the context of improvisational music by discussing the role improvisation plays in allowing people to find a voice they didn’t even know they had. My experiences as an improvisation facilitator and drum circle leader, particularly in women’s shelters and detention centres, offers me a special vantage point from which to explore the power of improvisa-tion as it unleashes new insights and energies. I will explore the tension between ”letting go” of one’s particular story in order to be fully present in the moment (a requirement for improvisation) and the need to express our stories, focusing on ways in which my Mennonite background, with its empha-sis on creative frugality, informs and shapes my work within improvisation.


FRIDAY, JUNE 58:30 – 10:30Great Hall

Conference Session I: Mennonite Worship Wars/Questions of Musical Genre in Mennonite Settings Chair, Anna Janecek

Geraldine Balzer “The Preservation of a Mennonite Hymn-Singing Tradition”This ethnographic study looks at youth and young adults who have chosen to attend a church with a strong hymn-singing tradition. When a prominent current trend seems to move away from hymnals and four-part harmony to choruses and worship bands, why are these youth choosing to remain in a church with a blended traditional and contemporary music program? Why are they choosing to sing in choirs whose repertoire spans a range of music, both contemporary and traditional? In this paper I will present and discuss responses to questions I am asking during interviews with youth and young adults. In addition, I will discuss my interviews with choir directors concerning their repertoire choices and the ways in which they engage youth.

Sarah Kathleen Johnson “The Political Theology of Hymnal: A Worship Book”The words and music of worship are a primary source and expression of the political theology of the Mennonite church. Political theology is broadly defined as the exploration of the relationship between faith and the public realm. An assessment of the sung political theology of the current denominational hymnal, Hymnal: A Worship Book (HWB), provides insight into the political thought of the Mennonite community. First, I identify the most political hymns by examining five sources: the table of contents, topical index, uses in worship index, scriptural index and hymnal concordance. Second, I statistically analyze the 85 most political hymns according to theme, historical context, use of scripture, national origin, distinct Anabaptist-Mennonite emphasis, and use in worship.


Friday, June 5 continuedJonathan Dueck “Those Mediated Mennonites: Church-Music Genres As Cosmopolitanism”Mennonites seem an odd subject for a study of media and identity. This is not only because of popular nostalgic images of Mennonites; Mennonite studies often characterize Mennonites as institution-builders and religious non-conformists, focusing on accommodation to and resistance against the secular nation. Mennonite participation in the “worship wars” – conflicts between adherents of popular and classical musics – points to another image: multiple mediated affinities connecting Mennonite individuals with (physically and metaphorically) distant others. Here, I draw on Ulrich Beck’s push away from the singular boundaries of national identity and towards “pluralized boundaries.” I argue that the practice of musical genre might constitute just such a set of pluralized boundaries through an ethnographic case study of three Mennonite churches in Edmonton, Alberta. Imagining “worship wars” as cosmopolitan both tempers Mennonite essentialism, and points to constraints on “elective” Mennonite identities.

Yi-Ting Huang “Plain Living and Simple Deeds: The Role and Meaning of a Music Education in the Old Order Amish Community”Amish schools, guided by their religion-based curriculum, often incorporate musical activities for children. The purpose of this study was to investigate the cultural meanings and music transmission processes within the context of a multi-age single-classroom Amish school through the lived experience of an Amish teacher. This was a qualitative single-case design with a focus on the Amish teacher and her interpretations of the role of music within the Amish school community. From the Amish teacher’s perspective, the guiding questions focused on: (1) how does music transmission take place in an Amish school? (2) What are the cultural meanings associated with music learning in this setting? (3) What are the musical and cultural expectations for students’ development through musical doing? The primary source of data collection was verbal interviews and the reconstruction of researcher field notes. Data analysis will consist of interpretation of field notes, personal reflection, and gathered materials.


Friday, June 5 continuedMyron Sauder “‘Mind the Slurs’: The Unusual Melodic Style of River Brethren Hymnody”This session will introduce the singing style of the River Brethren Church, a small Anabaptist group in Pennsylvania of Mennonite-related people. Since their beginning over two hundred years ago, the group has preserved a unique style of singing. They sing hymns a cappella from a small hymnal without musical notation using a slow, melismatic melodic style. The tunes have been transmitted orally between generations of worshippers, slowing down and evolving during the process. In addition to learning some fascinating church history, participants in this workshop will examine transcriptions of River Brethren melodies and even sing along with recordings of them. Discussion will include how or whether traditions such as this can survive contemporary worship developments. Copies of the River Brethren hymnal, Spiritual Hymns, and of the accompanying handbook that includes the tune transcriptions will be available for seeing and ordering.


Conference Session II: From Africa and the Middle East – Listening for Songs, Messages and Justice Chair, Doreen Klassen

Dorothy Jean Weaver “Middle East Soundings: Mennonite Sojourn, Musical Sustenance”As a Mennonite New Testament scholar I have travelled frequently in the Middle East - sometimes under peaceful circumstances and sometimes in the midst of enormous social upheaval and war. Throughout, I have found many forms of worship music - whether Arabic, Jewish, or Western - to be profoundly sustaining. An Arabic “Lord’s Prayer,” a Hebrew canon or an Armenian hymn may be sung in peaceful moments, while a sturdy American hymn can sustain the singers during ferocious gun battles which rage outside the walls. Mennonite music making in the Middle East occurs over a wide span of styles and situations. In this paper I will present ways in which various musical worship practices that I have encountered in Beirut, Nazareth, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Cairo can provide us with a new understanding of the power of song as a healing agent in times and places of extreme turmoil and conflict.


Friday, June 5 continuedAlina Balzer-Peters “Songs of Struggle – Anabaptists in the Apartheid?” South Africa, a land with remarkably expressive people and a rich but harsh political history, has produced some of the world’s most celebrated musicians. Among those we find Africa’s own ‘divas’ – powerful women of song – including Miriam Makeba, Dorothy Masuka, Sibongile Kuhmalo, Dolly Rathebe, and Thandi Klassen. Ironic as the term ‘diva’ may be, these women who have overcome extreme hardships and triumphed over daunting circumstances have crafted songs evoking strong emotion from South Africans and people around the world. Being heavily influenced by English and Dutch colonization and cultural norms, some have even adopted colonial names. Thandi Klassen is a curiosity here: how does this black South African woman end up with a traditionally Dutch, Russian Mennonite name? Is there something to be said about the universal struggle of people under oppression? What can we learn by connecting songs of the Anabaptists with those of these African ‘divas’?

Jennifer Wiebe “Afrikaners, Mennonites, and Music of the Anti-Conscription”The historic Mennonite peace church served as a voice of resistance during the apartheid era in South Africa. Forthright about confronting injustice, many Mennonites were denied entry into the country. Alongside Mennonite calls for change were South Africa’s own voices – anti-conscription activists who articulated similar opposition to the regime. Within this movement, music became a vital site for this struggle, with Forces Favourites emerging as South Africa’s first anti-war compilation, featuring the most radical Afrikaner artists of the 1980s. Within this compilation, Jennifer Ferguson’s sophisticated “Suburban Hum” serves as a ‘remake’ of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” which addressed racial struggle in Southern United States. By creating musical and lyrical allusions to this famous protest piece, Ferguson is able to confront the racial injustices of her own South African context and, as such, becomes part of a larger movement connected to the visions and principles of the Mennonite resistance movement.


Friday, June 5 continuedCari Friesen “Processes of Contextualization: Mennonite Music in Burkina Faso”This past century has seen significant changes in missiological approaches, leading to a growing awareness and acceptance of various cultural styles and practices among new Mennonite communities. Christian music and worship is one area that has been affected by these ways of thinking about mission, evangelism and culture. Drawing on my own experiences living in Burkina Faso, and returning there for a short period of fieldwork in 2007, I use the Samogohiri Mennonite Church in Burkina Faso as a case study to look at some contemporary approaches to music and worship in missiological contexts.

James Krabill “‘I Want to Join Your Community, But Do I Have To Learn your Music?’ – Six Stages of Music Development in Churches of the Global South”Many of the churches in today’s global South (Africa, Asia and Latin America) have passed, or are currently passing, through a number of stages on the way from their Western missionary origins to the creation of music for worship they can truly call their own. The six stages we will propose and examine briefly in this presentation are: importation, adaptation, alteration, imitation, indigenization and internationalization. While it is certainly not true that all churches have passed through every one of these stages or have done so in this precise order, the stages occur frequently enough to provide a helpful framework for understanding worship trends in the world’s newly-emerging and fastest-growing faith communities. Musical selections will be used in the presentation as illustrations of the various stages described.


Friday, June 5 continued2:00 – 2:30Chapel

Workshop Session II: Teaching through Song Chair, Fred MartinAnn Schultz with Rockway Mennnonite Collegiate Senior Choir “Allowing Students to Discover New Sound in Their Lands” Inspiring young musicians to make music is a task which requires equal doses of passion and perseverance. From my sixteen years as a choral conductor and music teacher at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate, I will discuss unique projects I have been able work on in order to help students discover the many “sounds in their own lands.” By exposing students to music of many genres and musical diversities I have been able to produce a CD entitled Pieces, Rockway’s first professionally produced recording. This work embraces many of the teaching principles I work with as a means of encouraging students to begin balancing values of heart, soul and mind while effectively expressing musical mes-sages within a cross-cultural choral repertoire. During my presentation members of the Rockway Choir will assist me in performing some of the music which best demonstrates this integrative work.


Conference Session III: Mennonite Music Makers – Creating Mennonite Musical Communities and Texts Chair, Marlene Epp

Judith Klassen “‘Wie han seeja je’daunst!’ (‘We Really Danced!’) – Remembering Music and Dance in Mennonite Mexico”When Old Colony Mennonites left Canada for Mexico in the 1920s, they sought to live out their non-conformist, pacifist beliefs without government intervention. In addition to agrarian living that emphasized community accountability, these Menno-nites valued the education of their children, and simple lifeways that set them apart from “the world” around them. Musically, this meant the rejection of modern technologies like radios and musical instruments (“Musik”). Emphases on education and proscriptions around Musik, however, did not deter Old Colony youth from practicing musical innovation. Based on fieldwork conducted in Mexico in 2006, this paper explores narratives of Mennonites who describe the covert Sunday afternoon kitchen dances of their youth. Overlap between church and home life in the colonies meant that these social gatherings affected community and family relationships; challenging assumptions of conformity, they demonstrate agency in Old Colony musicking.


Friday, June 5 continuedPeter Letkemann “Music, Suffering, and Mennonite Identity in Soviet Society - Continuity and Discontinuity, 1917-1945”By the year 1914, choral singing and music making formed an integral part of the fabric of Mennonite social and reli-gious life in the Russian Empire. The First World War placed a fermata over this activity, but it resumed again in late 1917 and continued to flourish during the first decade of Soviet rule in spite of terror, disease and famine. In fact, more time and energy were being devoted to music than earlier. The ban on formal religious instruction to those under 18, forced Mennonites to rethink the importance of developingJugendvereine, choirs and orchestras where young people could be exposed to moral ideas and protected from the influence of Soviet clubs and theatres. Choral singing was closely linked to Mennonite religious and social identity; when churches were closed and religious practice was banned during the years of collectivization and terror in the 1930s choral singing virtually ceased.

John Horst “The Role of Music in The Mennonite Hour Broadcast” This study explores the a cappella singing – an SATB choir, a women’s sextet, and a male quartet – within the American broadcast called The Mennonite Hour which thrived in the 50s and 60s, reaching over 140 stations in its prime. The singing styles will be featured and explained from the ranks of one of the long-standing singers, explaining how this music fit the mode and role of Mennonite music in its day, in Eastern USA.

Wendy Chappell-Dick “Exploring the Mennofolk Festivals Using the Lens of Metaphor”Mennofolk, a loose cluster of acoustic music festivals throughout the US and Canada, has been in existence for almost twenty years, with considerable growth in the past five years. How is it that a group without formalized leadership, such as a CEO, or even a mission statement, can continue to thrive and develop over such a long time? What has seemed like sheer providence can also be understood using a metaphor of organizational existence outlined by Gareth Morgan (2006, p. 241) in Images of Organization. He calls this metaphor, which aptly fits the Mennofolk experience, “organization as flux and


Friday, June 5 continuedtransformation.” In this presentation, I will use a series of Morgan’s images, or metaphors, to examine the Mennofolk phenomenon through a variety of organizational frame-works. In doing so, I hope to illuminate what Mennofolk festivals bring to the wider Mennonite Church as well as to society as a whole.

Doreen Klassen “‘I Guess We Should Use Some Drums’ – Negotiating Applied Ethnomusicology In An Intercultural Mennonite Context”This paper will explore factors that led to the creation and inaugural use of International Songbook 1990, a multi-lingual, multi-cultural songbook prepared for the 30,000 international Mennonite participants in the 13th assembly of the Mennonite World Conference in Winnipeg. Aspects of the creation of the songbook include the songbook committee formation process and the song solicitation and selection process, but also involve the aesthetics, and issues of representation underlying decisions concerning the graphics and musical score of this publication. Primarily, however, this paper will pursue the decision-making processes entailed in negotiating intercultural representation in the compilation and use of this songbook at the assembly gathered in Winnipeg. As editor of this book, I use this paper to combine critical autoethnography with scholarship concerning intercultural representation.

5:00 – 6:30 Great Hall

Keynote Event Host, James Pankratz

Performance: Irmgard Baerg and Bonnie Loewen “Habits of the Hands – Mennonite Dialogues of Poet and Pianist”The symbol of “hands,” one of the strongest Mennonite icons, stems from a sixteenth century etching of fleeing Anabaptist martyr Hans Denk who extends a rescuing hand to his drowning pursuer. The hand also represents Menno-nites’ practical, down-to-earth philosophy of giving a hand when needed. Here, we extend the metaphor by presenting a dialogue between the poetry/performance prose of Bon-nie Lowen and the piano performance of Irmgard Baerg, exploring different ways in which our hands find old and new habits of response to the world. Our Mennonite experiences of giving a hand to those suffering illness or experiencing


dislocation from institutionalized church, combined with our daily handiwork – from gardening to ‘texting’ – are reflected in this presentation. These expressions comment, if indi-rectly, on our shared perspectives on ways to hand-shape desired changes within our local and broader communities.

Keynote address: Alice Parker “The Search for Language: Words and Music in the Coming Years” When we communicate through sacred song, we are uniting bodies, minds and spirits in trying to express the unsayable. The poems and tunes of the past give the pattern, and great artists in each century stamp words and tones with their own clarity and fire. Now it is our turn. We must use the lan-guages of our time, or risk being irrelevant. Can we find the way to renew the symbols through the crucible of our own experiences and imaginations? Only then can we live up to our heritage, and illuminate the path for the next generation.

SATURDAY, JUNE 68:30 – 10:15Great Hall

Conference Session IV: Mennonite Composers Searching for Voice and Venue in a Fractured World Chair, Leonard Enns

Stephanie Martin “High Church Liturgy and Low Church Mennonite Song – Toward Creating Choral Responses”As a professional musician raised in a rural Mennonite community, I now work in an urban environment, making music not only with Toronto’s Mennonite Choir, Pax Christi Chorale, but also with a high Anglo-Catholic parish in the heart of Toronto. At the Church of St. Mary Magdalene I inherit a tradition of unaccompanied four part singing established by Healey Willan. Being “storm stayed” on a Thursday night when rehearsal was cancelled, I began to compose a series of motets for performance in the superb acoustic of Saint Mary Magdalene’s Romanesque heritage building. The composition which followed was The Kontakion of the Faithful Departed performed by Toronto’s Mennonite Choir in concert, April 2008. On examining these pieces we can draw experiential conclusions about the compatibility of new Anglo-Catholic liturgical music and the Mennonite singing tradition.


Saturday, June 6 continuedJanet Peachey “Composing for Choir/Rediscovering Musical Roots – Words from a Mennonite Composer”Being raised in a Mennonite family, I learned to sing in four-part harmony at an early age. Exposure to this tradition was an important part of my musical development, strengthening my skills as a composer, performer, and teacher. Consequently, I have composed music in a wide variety of genres: opera, ballet, orchestral, chamber, piano, and vocal, including a hymn, “Mothering God” and a recent ninety-minute chamber opera, Wheel Ordeal. After Sound in the Land 2004 I began to reconnect with my roots, finding that the most organic kind of musical expression for me is, after all, a cappella singing, which I did pre-verbally. So, composing choral music follows naturally, but with a new sense of deliberate, joyful choice rather than by mere habit. In this presentation I will discuss paths leading me back to these Mennonite choral roots which seem to find ways of entering even my most abstract instrumental music.

Larry Warkentin “Art or Popular Music? – Finding Appropriate Responses to our Fractured World”The changing musical environment of the emerging church seems to challenge long-held traditions of “art music” as worship. Is the artist at fault for hanging onto old patterns? Is the church at fault for selling out to the popular culture? How can popular and folk styles inspire art music composers? And will people listen and be inspired if music reaches beyond their comfort zone? With these questions in mind I wish to discuss a recent composition of mine, Chungking which expresses the horror of war with powerful, poignant text by Herold Wiens, eye-witness to this 1939 bombing in China. By avoiding political loyalties that cloud our opinions regarding current hostilities, this piece becomes a contemporary ‘hymn,’ expressing Wiens’ hope that “mercy will grow anew. . . when hatred has burned itself out.” What style sets this most appropriately – popular or art music? Can both styles inspire worship?


Saturday, June 6 continuedLarry Nickel “Requiem for Peace – Composing a Multi-Cultural Work”I will discuss my recent composition, Requiem for Peace, a large-scale work in fifteen movements for chorus, chamber choir, symphonic orchestra and three soloists. This music honors the suffering civilians of this world who have been caught in the crossfire between warring nations. Just as the writing of Wilfred Owen decries inhumanities committed universally, poets from every country have expressed anti-war sentiments through their poetry. Given the multi-cultural mosaic in Vancouver, where the Requiem was to be performed, I realized that a truly universal statement needed to include voices from other countries. The music integrates poetry in twelve languages; Hebrew, Farsi, Arabic, Greek, Mandarin, Japanese, French, Dutch, Russian, German and English. Continuity is provided by the traditional Latin liturgy. The libretto also includes a quote from Menno Simons. Remembrance, regret, remorse, repentance, reconciliation, redemption, renewal are the themes that run through Requiem for Peace.

10:45 – 12:30Chapel

Conference Session V: Composition Across the Arts – Mennonite Composers, Poets and Painters Chair, Jon Dueck

Jon Liechty “Plum Point Fantasy as a Way of Hearing the World – Words from a Composer”How does a painting inspire a composer? Abstract visual elements can suggest sounds directly or present various analogies. To me, Jane Frank’s painting “Plum Point” simul-taneously suggests two separate images: a cliff and a rocky stream bed, both of which influenced my composition Plum Point Fantasy. The red color in parts of the painting likewise had some bearing on the opening gesture of the piece. Just as the painting contains self-contained, bounded objects, my piece contains several sections of various characters, bounded by silences. In this way, the images of the painting provided me with a refreshingly new way to “hear” the world, allowing an inner landscape to develop which addresses the outer landscape presented by the painting. This inner land-scape, best articulated by the music itself, will be explained as a process of listening to and translating this inner world into Plum Point Fantasy for piano solo.


Saturday, June 6 continuedMagdalene Redekop “Haunted by Hymns: Music in ‘Mennonite’ Poetry”Poetry is the verbal art that is closest to music. Given the centrality of music in Mennonite culture, it is not surprising that allusions to songs are a recurring feature of “Mennonite” poetry. When unbidden melodies cross the borders of “free verse,” the result is a challenge to many common assumptions about both music and poetry. This paper is not a thematic survey of references to music in the work of selected poets. The goal is rather to articulate some of the inter-disciplinary questions that are generated when an old song haunts contemporary verse.

Jeff Gundy “Muse/Poetry/Music”Over my career as amateur guitarist and serious poet, play-ing and listening to music and finding a musical language for poems have been strongly and intricately related. Re-cent experiences with my poems being set to music have illuminated new possibilities as well as some tensions and dark hollows in those relations. My presentation will explore the results of hearing my poetry set to music: sometimes with meticulous fidelity to my original texts, sometimes in ways that altered my words almost beyond recognition. Yet the most drastic rewritings of my poems-in one or two cases, they served as little more than word-banks for the composer’s associative processes-worked as songs in ways that both surprised and pleased me, while the more faithful renderings sometimes seemed relatively colorless. How and where, then, do music and poetry meet, and how do they change each other? Surely this deserves further musing.

Carol Ann Weaver with Rebecca Campbell “Those Crazy Stories Becoming Song”Sometimes our own stories are the hardest to tell, our own songs the hardest to sing. Within this presentation I will focus on stories and writings which have caught my imagi-nation, compelling me to compose music. Certain stories by such Mennonite poets as Ann Hostetler, Jeff Gundy and Julia Kasdorf deal with familiar if whimsical landscapes, while other stories, not so lyrical, pull me into noisy, restless worlds far removed from places of comfort. Finding a crazy waltz between the familiar and unfamiliar, the peaceful and turbulent, is an ongoing challenge resulting in my writing mu-sic both about Mennonite’ kitchens and Zulu street violence,


Saturday, June 6 continuedred beet eggs (a Mennonite delicacy) and a senseless war in Iraq. As I realize these stories are somehow intricately connected, I begin to wonder if what we consider unique is actually quite universal, bringing us together in ways we had not yet imagined.


Conference Session VI: Direct from Cuba and Africa – International Music and Worship Styles Today [with live music] Chair, Carol Ann Weaver

Amós Lópas “Cuban and Latin American Church Music – Insights from a Troubadour”Drawing on my wide-ranging experiences as a church musician and church music educator throughout Cuba and Latin America I will present an equally wide-angled array of musical styles, liturgical songs, texts, and contexts of worship music within contemporary Cuban/Latino Christian worship settings, speaking about the place and purpose of song as a discrete and unique medium for worship. My discussion will explore my experiences in Mennonite, wider Protestant, and Catholic worship music settings, pointing to strong correlations between the musics of these different but related church traditions.

Maurice Mondengo “Understanding African Diversities and Daring to Create Music in Response to an African World”The session will address the diversity and paradoxes found in African Music. The rich music sung by the general population in cities and villages is closely related to everyday life. There is one exception: issues related to political conflict. These include topics of terminating the conflict, releasing guns from children war soldiers, true democracy. What is the risk of composing such music? How will we brave the fear of reprisal? Examples of such music will be presented and discussed.


Saturday, June 6 continuedMageshen Naidoo “When Jazz Reaches the Church – South Africa Worship Styles and the Role of the Contemporary Musician”South African and pan African worship music is infused with various indigenous as well as broader international jazz styles, all in the service of creating a music in touch with the times. From my own experiences playing guitar in worship settings as well as in my current teaching and professional performance, I have been able to be part of a large ground-swell of contemporary music used in worship settings in South Africa. My work stems from my own East Indian roots, blended with traditional marabi, township, and maskanda styles, all of which inform me of ways in which so-called “African music” frequently fuses styles from many different world cultures. While presenting first-hand accounts of working in contemporary African worship music I will focus on the interaction of worship styles with contemporary jazz and traditional styles, thus providing context and shedding light on African Mennonite worship practices today.

Prince Bulo “Notes from a Bassist: Xhosa Roots within African Worship Music”Growing up Xhosa, sharing ethnic roots with Miriam Makeba, Nelson Mandela, Hugh Masekela and other prominent South Africans, I am not only humbled by my heritage but am beginning to explore how our roots shape our musical expressions and worldviews. From my starting years as a gospel and church musician, through to my current work as a jazz bassist and continuing church musician, I would like to bring forth ways in which Xhosa styles have influenced worship music in South Africa today.

Thandeka Mabuza “From Zulu to Mennonite – Township Hymns In Transit”Growing up in a Zulu township area of Durban, where I at-tend a Seventh Day Adventist church and (with my university music degree in African traditional music) where I teach music in a township secondary school, I am fully involved in Zulu traditional singing styles. I am discovering how many songs we have in common with North American Mennonites, sung four-part a cappella as well! We sing “The Church’s One Foundation,” “Doxology,” “Do Not Pass Me By,” and “Crown Him Lord of All” in Zulu and harmonize them in our own ways. And here the differences begin! I wish to sing


Saturday, June 6 continuedand play some of our church songs, explaining how these ‘life songs’ are essential for our very survival. These songs which have travelled from America to Africa, and are now coming back to America, remain some of the ties that bind us together, different as our musical styles may be.

4:30 – 6:00Chapel

Matinee Mini ConcertsHost, Maureen Epp

Mini-Concert 1 Karin Redekopp Edwards with Mark Edwards “Two Pianos - Two Pianists – A Medium for Mennonite ‘Messages’”The piano is possibly the most common instrument known to Mennonites, many hands often playing at once in a typical Mennonite household. We will present several two-piano works written by Mennonite composers, looking at how these pieces may inadvertently express Mennonite musi-cal identities. Larry Nickel’s Menno alla Mozart brings a Mennonite hymn into a lyrical Mozart context; John Horst’s atonal The Moment incorporates humorous poetry of Ameri-can Mennonite poet, Donna Beachy Burkhart; Larry Warken-tin’s Sonata, based on traditional harmonic writing, includes a reference to a hymn; and Carol Ann Weaver’s Jive Afrique incorporates musical gestures brought back from Africa.

Mini-Concert 2 Dennis Bender, bass “The Songs of Larry Warkentin and the Russian Mennonite Experience” Three Ancient Chinese Songs is an early work, composed in 1980, set to texts translated by Arthur Waley. The text from Fire and Sword is set to “In Spite of Dungeon, Fire, and Sword” from A. A. Toews’ Mennonite Martyrs, an account of the death of teachers and pastors in South Russia following the 1917 revolution. Night Train to Riga is from the autobiography of J. B. Toews who was, for many years, the leading voice of Mennonite Brethren in the United States, and who baptized Larry Warkentin. These two songs were composed for Dennis Bender and the Sound in the Lands 09 Festival. Their composition grew out of a dialogue between Bender and Warkentin, which found parallels between the music of Dmitri Shostakovich reflecting his struggle with Soviet authority and the experiences of Russian Mennonites.


Mini-Concert 3 Ben Bolt-Martin, cello “From Tiegenhagen with Hope” – Music of Leonard EnnsOn visiting Tiegenhagen in the Ukraine, his mother’s childhood village, Leonard Enns found no remaining trace of the house and yard left behind by his mother’s family as they fled for refuge to a new homeland in North America in 1924. An ensuing Cello Sonata emerged from this composer, expressing both the grief and pain and the “rustic peasant-like” celebration which ultimately wins out. The sonata is unapologetically melodic, and is dedicated to cellist Ben Bolt-Martin, who premiered it in 2007.

SUNDAY, JUNE 710:00 – 12:00Detweiler Meeting House, Roseville(see map at back, bus available)

Hynms and Word - Singing Session I Philip Stoltzfus “The Performing God: Toward a Theology of Mennonite Hymn Singing” The musical sensibilities inherent within the various historical genres of Anabaptist/ Mennonite hymnody and singing practice carry within them profound implications for thinking theologically. The strongly participatory nature of the congregational singing aesthetic suggests the concept of “the priesthood of all believers.” The communal ecstasy of the hymn sing points to a common, cooperative sense of the presence of God; yet, at the same time, the individuation of lines in part singing reminds us of the diversity of faith orientations. And the temporal flow of the performed musical line itself suggests a theology on the move – a God whom we experience as an irreducibly active and performative reality. The everyday power of congregational singing practice as a shaping force in our experience as a people calls for an equally powerful approach to theological symbol and system which is participatory/popular, cooperative/ communitarian, diverse/pluralistic, and temporal/experimental. Setting this session in a restored 1855 Mennonite Meeting House is particularly fitting.



Music from Around the World – Singing Session II Host, Doreen Klassen

Marilyn Hauser-Hamm “Global Singing in a Church-wide Experience” (with singing)I will present, lead, and discuss global music as experienced in the post HWB era, including the Zimbabwe World Conference and all it brought forth, and the new supplemental hymnbooks, Sing the Journey, and Sing the Story. We will do much singing and exploring of new rhythms, concepts, and styles found in internationally-focused Mennonite music today.

Capstone Address: Mary Oyer “International Mennonite Music-Making as Cross-Cultural Experience” (with group singing)Although Mennonites originated in northern Europe, the group’s original ethnic identity has since been considerably broadened, first by migrations to North America and then to Asia, Africa, the Americas and beyond. At this point in history there are more Mennonites south of the equator than north. As I follow Mennonite music around the world, I retain the passionate hope that every ethnic group can both maintain its own heritage and value the music of others. Notably, hymn singing at several Mennonite World Conference gatherings between 1962 and 2003 reveals a dramatic rise in the use of cross-cultural resources. A similar increase has occurred in the revision of the Mennonite hymnals of 1969 and 1992, and recent hymnal supplements. The possibility of including dance in worship has come especially from African and Asian Mennonites. By singing representative cross-cultural hymns, we will explore how this newly emerging Mennonite “world music” brings us new musical values as well as new ways of understanding our own traditional values.


Sound in the Lands Bios

Irmgard Baerg, concert pianist, is known in many circles for the Mennonite Piano Concerto recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, and has performed regularly as solo pianist, accompanist and chamber music collaborator in live concerts and on CBC local and national networks. Her discography includes Romantic Works of S.C. Eckhardt Gramatte and the CD, A Compelling Portrait featuring music by Clara Schumann. Professor Emeritus of Canadian Mennonite University, Irmgard together with husband Bill, divide travel time with music projects and five grandchildren.

Geraldine Balzer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum Studies, College of Education at the University of Saskatchewan. She teaches in the area of Secondary English and her research interests include service learning and transformative education, decolonizing methodologies, Aboriginal education, and other Englishes. She is a member of Nutana Park Mennonite Church in Saskatoon and is very interested in the roles of liturgy and music in worship.

Alina Balzer-Peters, originally from Saskatoon, has completed her second year of university at the University of Waterloo in Women’s Studies and Music. Being a voice major and after taking a recent trip to South Africa, Alina has developed a keen interest in the power of words through song, thus leading to her Sound in the Lands presentation on South African song. Alina plans on taking next year off to live in Europe with the Intermenno Trainee Program.

Trevor George Hunsberger Bechtel is Assistant Professor of Religion at Bluffton University where he teaches courses in theology and ethics. His areas of academic specialty include creation, animals, popular culture and hermeneutics. His dissertation, “How to Eat Your Bible,” is under consideration with Polyglossia, a series at Herald Press. His band, Anabaptist Bestiary Project, released an eponymous CD last spring. He is a member of Chicago Community Mennonite Church. A native of Kitchener, Ontario, he has lived and worked in the USA for 15 years. He currently resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife, Susan Hunsberger, and their cat Tiamat. Dennis Bender has sung in opera and concerts in the United States, Canada, and Europe. He has performed in productions with Pittsburgh Opera, Opera Company of Boston, the Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, the Lexington Philharmonic, and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Canada. In Italy he has sung at the Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi. Recent performances include an all Shostakovich recital commemorating the centenary of the composer’s birth at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. Mr. Bender will travel to the Netherlands to give a series of concerts and masterclasses in Amsterdam and Friesland in August.


Joanne Elligsen Bender studied science at University of Waterloo before receiving composition degrees from Wilfrid Laurier University and University of Toronto. Her teachers were Glenn Buhr, Gary Kulesha, Christos Hatzis and Chan Ka Nin. She teaches piano and composition in her Waterloo studio. Her students have achieved top honours in festivals, exams and provincial competitions. Joanne is also active as a chamber musician and accompanist. Her piano pieces for children appear in several Canadian publications including the Royal Conservatory and Canadian National Conservatory albums. Joanne has also written a children’s musical and a chamber opera for her church, Erb St. Mennonite.

Ben Bolt-Martin plays principal cello with the Stratford Festival and has performed with the Georgian Bay String Quartet and the Festival Quartet of Stratford. He has recorded for numerous stage productions at Stratford and Shaw Festivals, Grand Theatre (London, ON) and Walnut St. Theatre (Philadelphia). Ben is featured on The Glass Menagerie/Orpheus Descending: Theatre Music of Marc Desormeaux, on Every 3 Children by Carol Ann Weaver, and on a Juno-nominated Timothy Corlis piece on Notes Towards. He directs Instrumental Chamber Ensembles at University of Waterloo, composes, arranges and has recently orchestrated the Bruce Dow musical, Wilde Tales. www.myspace.com/benboltmartin

Nancy Borusiewich has played with KW Symphony for over 20 years. She has also performed at the Stratford Festival and in Toronto as a freelance artist. She teaches violin at the Beckett School in Kitchener.

Mel Braun, baritone, is a versatile artist, interested in every style of music. Per-formances this season included Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Calgary Bach Festival, Bernstein’s Candide with Manitoba Opera, the Canadian premiere of a new Children’s Opera by Mervyn Burtsch titled Jason and Hanna, a multi-media performance celebrating Schubert’s life among his friends, a 100 Mile Concert showcasing Manitoba composers, and a house concert. When not performing, Mel is kept busy at the Marcel A. Desautels Faculty of Music, where he heads up the Vocal Department and works with ensembles. Among his favourite initia-tives is the Contemporary Opera Lab, an annual summer course at the Univer-sity of Manitoba that trains young singers and pianists in New Opera. Prince Bulo, bassist, arranger, composer, is a rising star on the South African bass scene, hailing from Xhosa background. His love for music was evident from a very early age. At the age of 15 he played keyboards in clubs and concerts with gospel groups. He later switched to bass guitar, studying at University of Iowa before graduating from University of KwaZulu-Natal. He has played with such celebrities as Branford Marsalis, Sibongile Khumalo, Jack deJohnette, Darius Brubeck, Ernie Smith, George Mari, Mageshen Naidoo, and for SA President Thabo Mbheki. He played at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, toured Sweden, and regularly plays at Durban Christian Centre.


Rebecca Campbell is one of the most evocative, exquisite vocalists in Canada whose versatile musicianship, combined with uncanny vocal sensibilities, gives her a uniquely compelling voice within this music. A Canadian treasure, she has done extensive touring and recording on her own and in support of many artists including Jane Siberry, Pork Belly Futures, Justin Haynes, Fat Man Waving, Three Sheets to the Wind, and Carol Ann Weaver: across Canada, the United States, Hawaii, Europe, South Africa and Korea. Her CDs The Sweetest Noise and Tug, have received high critical acclaim in Canada and abroad.

David Campion has performing credits which span a wide variety of musical styles. He has recorded over 45 discs as timpanist with the Juno award-winning Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and toured Europe, North America and Japan with Opera Atelier and Musica Antiqua Koln. He is a busy freelance jazz kit player and principal percussionist with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, North America’s largest repertory theatre company. He is a founding member of the Toronto Percussion Ensemble, a member of the New Art Quartet and drummer for the eclectic Celtic band Shaggy Haggis. David directs percussion at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.

Tom Cummings is a seasoned freelance percussionist who came to Kitchener-Waterloo from Houston, Texas. He has played with such jazz greats as Charlie Byrd, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Aretha Franklin, and Herb Ellis, and is at home in many settings from Musical Theatre, Big Band and small group Jazz to Rock and Roll. Tom has performed at the Berlin, Montreaux, North Sea, L.A. , and Mexico City Jazz Festivals. His classical experience includes performances with the Houston Symphony, Texas Opera Theater, Houston Ballet, Jeoffrey Ballet, Houston Grand Opera, and the Texas Chamber Orchestra, and in a Houston church orchestra.

Cheryl Denise grew up in Elmira, Ontario. After nursing school she did three years of voluntary service through a Mennonite agency, as a public health nurse, in La Jara, Colorado. She and her husband, Mike Miller, live in the intentional community of Shepherds Field, near Philippi, WV. The sheep farm produces wool blankets, yarn and lambs for sale. She works as a nurse at the Barbour County Senior Center coordinating in-home care services. Cheryl is the author of the poetry book, I Saw God Dancing, published by Cascadia Publishing House, co-published by Herald Press.

Jonathan Dueck is an ethnomusicologist with a special interest in religion and social identity, and area interests in North America and Africa. Jonathan is currently working on an article (under review) on the “worship wars” as musical conflict, a book manuscript on the subject, and a book prospectus on music and global Christianities. He has most recently published an article in the Journal of American Folklore on Mennonite choral music recordings as an ethnic “artifact.” An alumnus of the University of Alberta (PhD, ‘03), the University of Winnipeg, and both C.M.B.C. and Concord College, Jonathan is presently a Thompson Writing (postdoctoral) fellow at Duke University.


Karin Redekopp Edwards & Mark Edwards, as the two-piano team of Redekopp & Edwards, have performed to critical acclaim in Japan, Korea, England, Canada, and the United States. Their CD, Two-Piano Tapestry: Redekopp & Edwards, features works by Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Poulenc, Infante, and their own arrangements of three ragtime tunes by Zez Confrey. The husband and wife duo have also been featured artists in international symposia and various music teachers’ conventions. Recognized as accomplished soloists, each performs regularly with orchestra, in recital and in chamber music concerts. A recipient of Canada Council grants, Karin Redekopp Edwards is professor of piano at Wheaton College in Illinois and holds degrees from the University of Manitoba (BMus) and Indiana University (MM, DM). Mark Edwards is organist at Baker Memorial United Methodist Church in St. Charles and maintains a private studio in Wheaton, teaching piano, harpsichord, and organ. He holds degrees from Eastman School of Music and Indiana University. The two pianists met while pursuing graduate studies with Abbey Simon at Indiana University.

Emma Elkinson, Irish-born flutist, is a musician of wide-ranging musical skills and performance venues. From recording for Naxos to careening through a darkened forest during a performance of Murray Schaffer’s Patria, she constantly engages music with a fervor that never fails to capture her audience. Emma’s career has taken her throughout Europe, to North America and back again. She is currently working on her Masters Degree in Music in the Netherlands while continuing to perform and teach throughout Toronto. She flew in from Holland, just in time for this festival!

Jeff Enns, current Composer in Residence for the Canadian Chamber Choir, studied organ, viola and composition at Wilfrid Laurier University. He has won the Amadeus Choir Competition and the Trinity United Competition. His pieces have been performed across Canada, the US, Ireland and Japan. He has received commissions from churches and choral organizations including Menno Singers, Inter-Mennonite Children’s Choir, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, and the Canadian Chamber Choir. His music has been heard on CBC and recorded by various choirs. He is organist and choir director at St. James Lutheran Church, Elmira, teaches music, and is a stay-at-home dad.

Leonard Enns is a faculty member in the University of Waterloo Music Department at Conrad Grebel University College, and is active as composer, conductor, and adjudicator. Recent recordings of his works include the 2006 CD NorthWord, recorded by the Elora Festival Singers, and the 2007 CD Hammer and Wind, featuring his chamber music for instruments and voice. His music appears on various other CDs. Enns is founding director of the DaCapo Chamber Choir, and directs the Conrad Grebel Chapel Choir. Both choirs will release new CDs this fall.


Maureen Epp holds a PhD in Renaissance Musicology from University of Toronto and has taught at University of Toronto, McMaster University, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Conrad Grebel University College. She has published articles on fifteenth-century popular song and vernacular religious song. Together with Carol Ann Weaver, she co-edited Sound in the Land: Essays on Mennonites and Music (2005), proceedings from the first Sound in the Land Conference, and will also co-edit the next Sound in the Lands publication. She resides in Winnipeg, where she works as a freelance editor for academic publishers, enjoys long bike rides, and participates in congregational music-making at Home Street Mennonite Church.

Jan Fretz, founder of fleur de soleil gallery & studio, was born in Waterloo County. She lived in Toronto for 30 years where she worked primarily in the woven and fibre arts. Her return to Waterloo has revived her interest in study-ing other media. She is currently a part-time student of Fine Arts (Studio) at the University of Waterloo. Jan works in oil, acrylic, watercolor, printmaking, encaustic and clay. Jan instructs through her ArtTwoGether business, ages 2 to 90. Her work has found it’s way into homes and businesses in North America, Australia, Great Britian, S. Korea, Germany and Uganda. Her work is also fea-tured on CD covers. Her show, “Where Does God Live” Part 11, is on display in the Grebel dining hall. www.fleurdesoleilgallery.com

Cari Friesen is a graduate student in Ethnomusicology, studying at the Univer-sity of Alberta. She is currently doing research for her thesis on musical taste and the construction of identity among West African Canadians. An alumna of Canadian Mennonite Bible College, she has experience living and work-ing overseas with Mennonite Church Canada through AIMM and Mennonite Partners in China. She continues to look for ways to integrate her interest in ethnomusicology with her desire to serve cross-culturally.

Marilyn Houser Hamm is a music and worship leader and clinician in the Mennonite Church throughout Canada and the USA. Her work includes Hymnal: A Worship Book supplements Sing the Journey, 2005 and Sing the Story, 2007, and two songbook compilations for Mennonite World Conference Global Assemblies (Winnipeg ’91, Zimbabwe ’03). As the former Director for Worship & Spirituality, Mennonite Church Canada, Marilyn actively teaches and performs in southern Manitoba and in collaboration with Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg, Manitoba.


Mark Hartman grew up in Harrisonburg, Virginia, teaches at Shippensburg University, PA, and conducts the University-Community Orchestra. He performs in the Shippensburg Festival, the Gettysburg Festival, and Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival. With a DMA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in violin performance, he has taught at Wake Forest University, Houghton College, Central College (Iowa), and was Concertmaster of Southern Tier Orchestra, Assistant Concertmaster of Salisbury Symphony and a member of Winston-Salem Symphony and Greensboro Symphony. In addition to his activities as concert violinist and conductor he performs jazz and contemporary styles on violin and guitar.

John L. Horst grew up in Scottdale PA in the Mennonite Publishing House era back in the 40’s and 50’s. In the fall of 1956 he came to Eastern Mennonite College, Harrisonburg VA, studying math and music, and singing bass in the Mennonite Hour quartet. Following graduate school he returned to Eastern Mennonite University, teaching mathematics and physics for 37 years. Music has always been a wonderful avocation – singing and a bit of composing. As well he remains a wild fan of Charles Ives! John presently hosts Mostly Mennonite, Mostly A Cappella Sunday mornings on WEMC, or online, wemcradio.org

Yi-Ting Huang grew up in Taiwan. She taught in public school for four and a half years. Her teaching experience includes flute and piano private lessons, grades 1-6 general music, ensembles, choral music, classroom teacher position, as well as early childhood music in community schools. Yi-Ting is currently a Ph.D candidate and teaches the Music for Elementary Classroom Teacher course in the Penn State Music Education Department, with a focus on elementary general music, early childhood music, and the application of integrative arts and multicultural education. [email protected]

Margaret Elligsen Hull is a graduate of University of Waterloo and University of Toronto. She studied voice with Victor Martens at Wilfrid Laurier University and taught voice at Conrad Grebel College before becoming an elementary teacher in the Waterloo Region. She sang the vocal part of Auyuittuq at its premiere performance and on a WLU compilation CD.

Anna Janecek has completed degrees in music and theology from Canadian Mennonite Bible College and Conrad Grebel University College at the University of Waterloo, and an M.A. in musicology from the University of Toronto. She is currently enrolled in a Master of Sacred Music programme at Emmanuel College in Toronto. Her research interests include hymnology, music for worship and issues relating to cultural diversity in worship. Current projects include serving as secretary for the Sound in the Lands 2009 planning committee and co-editing the forthcoming Sound in the Lands publication.


Sarah Kathleen Johnson is currently a student of liturgy at Yale Divinity School. She is a graduate of Conrad Grebel University College (MTS, ’08) and the University of Waterloo (BA, Religious Studies, ’07). Her academic interests include liturgy, hymnody, ecumenism and congregational studies. Her first book, Youth Worship Source Book, a worship curriculum for high school age youth, will be available from Mennonite Publishing Network this summer. A native of Waterloo, Ontario, her home congregation is First Mennonite Church, Kitchener where she has enjoyed serving in various lay worship leadership positions.

Doreen Helen Klassen is Chair of the Social/Cultural Studies program at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, a campus of the Memorial University of Newfound-land. Her research interests include gesture in women’s storytelling in Zimba-bwe and Botswana, the politics of wall mural production in Winnipeg, Manitoba, concepts of public and private space in Newfoundland laundry practices, and Mennonite identity and expression: oral Mennonite history in Mexico, the poli-tics of Mennonite church music and vernacular Low German song, and applied ethnomusicology. She was the editor of International Songbook 1990, prepared for the Mennonite World Conference in Winnipeg. Judith Klassen, ethnomusicologist, violist, and violin teacher, hails from Altona, Manitoba, and currently lives in Winnipeg. With a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology and Governor General’s Gold Medal in Graduate Studies from Memorial University of Newfoundland, M.A. in Ethnomusicology from York University, B.Mus. in viola from U. Manitoba, and B.A. in Church Music from CMBC, she has taught in Manitoba, Paraguay, and Mexico and has published in areas of Mennonite music and community radio. As part of a vibrant folk duo with Simon Neufeld, featured at Sound in the Lands, they produced their first CD The Land in 2006.

James Krabill, senior executive for Mennonite Global Ministries, is an ethnomusicologist with a Ph.D in African Studies from University of Birming-ham, England. He and his wife Jennette have served in Ivory Coast and else-where in Africa and Europe under Mennonite Board of Missions. He has taught in Ireland, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Paris (France), at Fuller in California, and at many other church-related institutions in the USA. He is widely published in ar-eas of African independent church music and is a co-author, along with Roberta King, of the 2008 Music in the Life of the African Church.


Peter Letkemann received his musical training at the University of Manitoba, the Westfälische Landeskirchenmusikschule in Herford, Germany, and the University of Toronto (Ph.D., Musicology, 1985). He was organist/choirmaster since age 15 in a variety of congregations, and has also taught music at the Canadian Mennonite Bible College (Winnipeg), the University of Manitoba, Conrad Grebel College (Waterloo) and Mennonite Biblical Seminary (Elkhart). In addition to his dissertation, The Hymnody and Choral Music of Mennonites in Russia, 1789-1915, Peter has written extensively on various aspects of Mennonite hymnody and musical practices, including his recent book, The Ben Horch Story (2007). Peter now leads a varied life as performer, writer, and businessman in Winnipeg.

Jon Liechty, American composer and pianist, was born in Goshen, Indiana in 1964. His compositions have been performed in New York, Baltimore, Oberlin, Mexico City, and other places. Jon lives in New York City, where he is Assistant Music Director of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. He has received grants from Meet the Composer and the Indiana University Honors Division. He is a graduate (BM 1988, MM 1996) of Indiana University School of Music, Bloomington, Indiana; his teachers have included Donald Erb, Eugene O’Brien, Claude Baker, and Don Freund. Jon’s web site is jon-liechty.com

Anne Lindsay is one of the most engaging, versatile instrumentalists in Canada, adapting her unique violin/fiddle playing to varied musical styles. She has worked with leading Canadians acts – Blue Rodeo, Jim Cuddy, John McDermott, and played a key role as fiddler in Lord of the Rings stage show. Awards include Violinist of the Year (2007 National Jazz Awards), Solo Instrumentalist and Producer of the Year (2007 Canadian Folk Music Awards), KM Hunter Award (2006 Ontario Arts Council), and Songs From the Heart (2006 OCFF Award). Her CDs, News From Up the Street (with Oliver Schroer) and Eavesdropping feature original compositions and expressive playing.

Bonnie Loewen is a writer who lives on a turkey and grain farm near Steinbach, Manitoba with her husband and three children. Her work represents women’s life stories. With a Master of Divinity from Toronto School of Theology and B.A from University of Winnipeg, she helps lead Prairie Wind Mennonite Church, a house church that emphasizes the ‘voice of the people,’ and provides spiritual care for those suffering chronic disease, palliative care and dislocation from the institutional church. Recently she won second prize in the Geez Magazine competition, “30 sermons you would never hear in church.” Her collaborative work with Irmgard Baerg is heard here.


Laura Loewen, Winnipeg collaborative pianist, hailed as “exceptional” (Winnipeg Free Press), “fiercely committed” (Vancouver Sun), with “fingers that have no idea of what is possible on a keyboard, so they just go ahead and play what isn’t” (Halifax Chronicle Herald) has appeared in concerts throughout Canada and the United States. She is a professor of Collaborative Piano/Vocal Coach at the University of Manitoba. She is on the faculties of NUOVA Opera in Edmonton, Alberta, the Contemporary Opera Lab at University of Manitoba, and VISI (Vancouver International Song Institute). Her discography includes CDs with saxophonists Richard Dirlam and Mark Engeretson and an upcoming CD of Canadian music for saxophone and piano with duo partner Allen Harrington.

Amós López, Cuban troubador, singer/songwriter and presenter in churches and events in Guatemala, Brazil, Costa Rica, USA, Canada, Ecuador, Argenti-na, and Cuba, was a participant in the Zimbabwe Mennonite World Conference, earning the moniker, “famous Amos.” He is director of the Epiphany Celebra-tion in the Mella Theatre, Havana and editor of the New Protestant Hymnal of Cuba, published by Council of Churches of Cuba. With a Theology Diploma from Universidad Biblica Latino Americana and also an Industrial Design and Engineering Diploma from University of Havana, he is a specialist in Cuban-Latino worship music, presenting workshops on art and liturgy.

Thandeka Mabuza is a powerful, compelling Zulu singer, teacher and dancer who has performed throughout South Africa, Sweden, Scotland, Germany, and appeared in a recent jazz festival in New Orleans. Hailing from the Ntuzuma township area of Durban, she possesses a vivid sense of African traditional styles blended with contemporary African jazz sensibilities. The only girl among four brothers, she comes from a very musical family of singers. Her mother, Jabu, is a church song conductor who sings with the choir and is a great influence in Thandeka’s life. In 2002 Thandeka obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Performance, Traditional African Music and Dance, and Music Education at University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban. She is a music teacher in a Durban township high school, doing exchange programs with students from Scotland and Sweden. As well, Thandeka is an active church musician at the Seventh Day Adventist township church in Ntuzuma.

Stephanie Martin, composer, teacher, performer and church musician, has contributed to the Toronto’s colourful music scene for 30 years. Associate Professor of Music at York University, Martin holds degrees from the University of Toronto, Wilfrid Laurier University, and is an Associate of the Royal Canadian College of Organists. As Artistic Director of Pax Christi Chorale, Martin leads this 85-voice choir in memorable performances of the oratorio repertoire. As Music Director of the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene in Toronto, she recently recorded Healey Willan’s “lost” manuscripts, and the resident women’s chant group Schola Magdalena recorded their first CD O Gracious Light this Spring.


Menno Singers has been an active part of the Kitchener-Waterloo choral community since 1955 when Abner Martin founded the choir with an aim to provide Mennonite choristers with opportunities to study and perform sacred a cappella choral music. The 45-voice choir now includes secular works, hymns and oratorios. Menno Singers also sponsors the Mennonite Mass Choir, giving the larger choral community an opportunity to perform choral works. Menno Singers has produced two recordings: Rachmaninoff Vespers (1992) and See Amid the Winter’s Snow (2000). The choir anticipates a fall release of music by local composers, including some performed at Sound in the Lands ’09.

Frances Miller is a multi-instrumental improvisational artist, performer, teacher, songwriter and facilitator. She lives in the mountains of Virginia where she teaches music at a small Waldorf-inspired school. She performs with her violin, hang drum and voice with a variety of wonderful musicians, and alone, in a number of performance settings. Frances facilitates improvisational music events such as drum circles, vocal groups and “Sound Art” workshops. She has a movie soundtrack and three CDs released. Frances has a passion for the personal and communal transformation that can be accessed through music.

Willem Moolenbeek, saxophonist, enjoys a varied musical career that spans most genres and styles. He has performed throughout Canada and in Europe with pop groups, as an orchestral soloist, chamber musician and in recital. His recordings are frequently aired on CBC radio. As a proponent of new works for his instrument he has premiered and recorded works by many Canadian composers including Leonard Enns. He is an artist/clinician for Jupiter Instruments and a veteran of over 2000 school performances. Willem teaches saxophone at McMaster University and Conrad Grebel University College.

Maurice Mondengo, ThM is pastor, choir director, composer, lecturer (Protestant University of Congo, 2003-2008). He was one of several pastors of the Community Baptist of River Congo, a large Baptist Church in Congo; he led several choirs in Congo, and taught at the seminary of the Protestant University of the Congo since 2003. He composed songs, recorded CDs, and produced a short DVD. Although risky, he believes that issues related to political conflict in Africa can be sung and preached about. These include topics of terminating the conflict, releasing guns from children war soldiers, and creating true democracy.

Mageshen Naidoo, leading South African guitarist, has performed in the USA, London, Scotland, Germany, Sweden and Mexico. His many performance credits include Angelique Kidjo (Africa), Darius Brubeck, Mike Rossi (USA), Michael Bolton, Yuri Honing (Holland), Ronald Snijders (Suriname), Marco Pignataro (Italy) and Oscar Stagnaro (Venezuela), Karin Bengjmark (Sweden), Feya Faku and Ladysmith Black Mambazo (South Africa). He has recorded locally and internationally and has won numerous national and international awards for Composition and Performance. He is a jazz and guitar professor at University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa.


Larry Nickel is a composer, teacher, music minister and choral clinician. Larry discovered his musical gift while studying in India under the International Baccalaureate Program. Larry continued at Columbia Bible College, the University of British Columbia and the University of Lethbridge. He completed his Master of Music degree at the University of Western Washington in 1983. In 2003 Larry took a leave from teaching to pursue a Doctorate in Composition, completed in 2007. Requiem for Peace, his doctoral thesis, is an extensive work for chorus and symphony orchestra in twelve languages. Larry’s music is widely published and performed internationally.

Peter Nikiforuk has been the artistic director of Menno Singers since 1998. A native of Brantford, he has degrees from the University of Toronto (Bachelor of Music), Yale University Institute of Sacred Music (Masters of Music, Master of Musical Arts, Doctor of Musical Arts), and the Royal Academy of Music in London, England (Advanced Course diploma). Peter has been Director of Music at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church since 1989. He is an active recitalist and clinician, instructor in theory and music history with The Beckett School and general editor for Kelman Hall Publishing.

Mary K. Oyer is Professor Emerita of Music at Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana, and a major contributor to the last two Mennonite hymnals. She is a cellist, church musician, hymnody scholar, hymnal editor, and enlivener of congregational song. With more than 40 years as a professor at Goshen College, and additional years at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, Mary also studied African musical traditions in 22 countries on a series of Fulbright grants. She has been a visiting professor at both Kenyatta University in Kenya, and at Tainan Theological Seminary in Taiwan. Her leadership role in expanding Mennonite musical, visual, and cultural literacy has earned her the unofficial title of “Dean of Mennonite Music”.

Alice Parker holds a Master’s degree from the Juilliard School where she studied choral conducting with Robert Shaw. Her life-work has been in choral and vocal music, combining composing, conducting and teaching in a creative balance. Her arrangements with Robert Shaw of folksongs, hymns and spirituals form an enduring repertoire for choruses all around the world. She is the founder of Melodious Accord Inc., a non-profit group that presents choral concerts, sponsors workshops, symposia and professional appearances. She has made eleven acclaimed recordings with the Musicians of Melodious Accord, has written books on melodic styles, choral improvisation and good singing in church. She serves on the Board of Chorus America. For more information, go to www.aliceparker.com


Janet Peachey’s orchestral, vocal, and chamber music has been performed and broadcast in North America and Europe. Her setting of the hymn “Mothering God” appears in the 1992 Mennonite/Brethern hymnal and the 2005 Scottish Church Hymnary. She teaches music theory and composition at Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC. She holds a DMA in composition from The Catholic University of America in Washington DC and diplomas in composition and conducting from the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, Austria, where she was a two-year Fulbright grantee. To hear recordings of her works please visit her website, www.janetpeachey.com

Magdalene Redekop is Professor of English at the University of Toronto, where she has taught Canadian literature for over thirty years. She has published numerous articles on Mennonite culture, the most recent being “The Mother Tongue in Cyberspace,” on line at www.mennonitewriting.org

Catherine Robertson has a Bachelors degree in piano from Queen’s University, a Licentiate from Royal Academy of Music, London, England, and Master of Music in piano from University of Western Ontario. Her interest in vocal pedagogy and conducting led to singing with Tafelmusik Chamber Choir and Elora Festival Singers. Catherine is founding member and music director of TACTUS Vocal Ensemble, specializing in Renaissance music. Ms. Robertson performs, coaches, adjudicates, accompanies, conducts, and teaches piano and keyboard literature at Conrad Grebel University College. She has recently recorded Leonard Enns’ Piano Sonata on his 2007 Hammer and Wind CD.

Rockway Mennonite Collegiate Senior Choir is an ensemble comprised of 51 choristers in grades 11 and 12 under the direction of Ann L. Schultz. Choristers rehearse twice a week during the school day and study repertoire from all musical eras. This year the choir has sung in several area churches, at conferences and participated in the annual Mennonite Secondary Council Music Festival in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania followed by a touring day in Washington, DC. In 2007, the choir released its first professional CD, Pieces, featuring the choir and Rockway’s senior instrumental ensembles. The choir is honored to be a part of The Sound in the Lands conference.

Myron Sauder teaches high school English at Faith Mennonite High School in Lancaster, Pa., where he lives with his wife, Sarah, and two sons, Reuben and Justin. He also teaches hymnology and music theory, and has directed a school chorus. At Messiah College, his minor in music included study of hymnology and composition. The fascinating hymn tradition of his church, the River Brethren, prompted him to produce Handbook for Spiritual Hymns, a handbook to their hymnal. Today, hymns remain the primary focus of Myron’s musical interest.


Ann L. Schultz is in her 18th of year of teaching at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate where she is the Music Department Head and also teaches French. In 2003-2004 Ms. Schultz was on a one year sabbatical leave when she took several graduate courses at Westminster Choir College and also received her Senior Honour’s Specialist in Music. In May of 2007 she produced Rockway’s first CD entitled Pieces and in 2008 she was privileged to be the vocal director for Rockway’s production of High School Musical. She lives in Waterloo with her husband Steve Pfisterer and daughters Kaylen and Elizabeth.

SoulInfluence is a Toronto-based African a cappella gospel-jazz group from Zimbabwe, Kenya, Zambia and Congo who produce a fusion of African spiritual sounds of Zulu, Shona, Ndebele, Bemba, Lingala, Tonga, Taita and Swahili roots. Their music is deeply rooted in African tradition and culture, bringing the vibrancy of Africa to the hearts of those who hear it, and often singing in support of HIV/AIDS work in Africa. Members include Uitsile Ndlovu, Dorothy Ghettuba, Miriam Chimanga, Fred Onsoti, Simba Nyawiri, Matthew Kashila and Valentine Mandeya. Their motto: “It’s not only about singing, but about making a difference!”

Philip E. Stoltzfus is Visiting Professor of Justice and Peace Studies at the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, Minnesota), and has previously taught at Bethel College (N. Newton, Kansas) and St. Olaf College (Northfield, Minnesota). He holds a B.A. in music and history from Goshen College, and M.Div. and Th.D. degrees from Harvard Divinity School. His recent book is Theology as Performance: Music, Aesthetics, and God in Western Thought (T. & T. Clark, 2006). Stoltzfus appears annually as a violinist with the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival (Harrisonburg, VA) and is currently developing a course, “Theological Inquiries into Music,” for United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities.

Bryan Moyer Suderman writes songs that are deeply scriptural, musically memorable, and readily singable. His three CDs of “songs of faith for small and tall” (he is currently recording the 4th) have become favourites of families and churches across North America and beyond, with songs published in numerous hymnal, songbook, and curriculum resources. Bryan’s “Community Supported Music” initiative, patterned after the “Community Supported Agriculture” approach, has been running since 2006, making quarterly online “deliveries” of new songs that are “fresh, home-grown, and always in season.” www.smalltallmusic.com and www.bryanmoyersuderman.com

Christine Treimanis has recently retired from KW Symphony after over 25 years of performing. She resides in Buffalo with her husband and is excited about playing chamber music, writing and performing musical shows in her second career.


Larry Warkentin is professor emeritus at Fresno Pacific University where he taught music theory and piano from 1962-2002. He holds degrees in music from Tabor College, California State University, Fresno, and University of Southern California. He and his wife Paula are members of North Fresno Mennonite Brethren church where he serves on the worship committee and is piano accompanist for the choir. Several of his hymn tunes are in Hymnal: a Worship Book and in the Covenant Hymnal. His articles on music have appeared in The Christian Leader, The Choral Journal, and The Pacific Journal. On May 10, 2009 Tabor College premiered his cantata Sun, Moon and Stars for choir, baritone solo and orchestra.

Carol Ann Weaver, eclectic composer/pianist, has performed her music throughout Canada, USA, South Africa, South Korea and parts of Europe. Her genre-bending music blends classical, jazz, avant garde, folk, resulting in new fusions of roots and art music, often coloured by her passion for African music. With six CDs, her music reflects collaborations with South African jazz musicians, vocalists Rebecca Campbell and Cate Friesen, writers Ann Hostetler, Rudy Wiebe, Di Brandt, Julia Kasdorf, Jeff Gundy, and others. She is professor of composition, theory, jazz, African music and peace, women/music/gender studies at Conrad Grebel/University of Waterloo, and is Sound in the Land(s) founder/director.

Dorothy Jean Weaver is Professor of New Testament at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, Harrisonburg, VA, where she has taught since 1984. She also travels frequently to the Middle East for sabbatical study, teaching, and tour-leading. With an MDiv from Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, IN, and a PhD in New Testament Studies from Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, VA, she is the author of Matthew’s Missionary Discourse: A Literary Critical Analysis (Sheffield, 1990). Dorothy Jean sings regularly with the Shenandoah Valley Choral Society and the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival.

Jennifer Wiebe holds a master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Ottawa and a postgraduate diploma in Peace and Conflict Studies from Conrad Grebel University College. Pursuing work in the social justice field, Jennifer has gained experience with a human rights agency in Washington, DC, an ethno-religious peacebuilding organization in Nigeria, a volunteer project in Sri Lanka, and Fair Trade organization for Ten Thousand Villages. The concept for her paper developed during her participation in a music and travel course to Durban, South Africa with Carol Ann Weaver in May, 2006.


Thanks to...Event Sponsor

Concert Sponsors St Jacobs Furnishings/Stone Crock

Waterloo Region ARTS FundBlue North

Mennonite Foundation of Canada

GrantsSchultz Memorial Fund

Academic Development Fund - Conrad Grebel University College Marpeck Fund

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

DonorsAnonymous

Corina BeckerUrie and Dorothy Bender Endowment Fund

Lara DowningEsther Etchells

Ken and Linda FreyLen and Mary Friesen

Peter LetkemannJohn and Lorraine Peters

Lauren Smith


SOUND IN THE LANDSOrganizers

Meg Bauman Recruitment & Events CoordinatorBen Bolt-Martin Director of Chamber Music Ensembles, Wendy Chappell-Dick Director of Mennofolk, North AmericaLeonard Enns Professor of MusicLaura Gray Associate Professor of MusicAnna Janecek Musicologist, writerJennifer Konkle Communication CoordinatorFred W. Martin Director of DevelopmentCheri Otterbein Food Services ManagerAnn Schultz Music Teacher, Rockway Mennonite CollegiateCarol Ann Weaver Associate Professor of Music Sound in the Lands Chair

Advisory CommitteeJonathan Dueck Researcher, Writer, Ethnomusicologist Duke University, NC, USAMaureen Epp Musicologist, Editor Winnipeg, MBDoreen Klassen Associate Professor of Music Memorial University, NFCheryl Pauls Assistant Professor of Music CMU, Winnipeg, MB

Special Thanks to:Technical Staff: Andy Chappell-Dick and Wendy Chappell-DickPeter Nikiforuk and Menno SingersRockway Mennonite Collegiate Senior ChoirMarlene EppMary K. OyerJames PankratzAngela Roorda and Tom Barber of UW Research/SSHRCBryan Moyer Suderman

It takes a village to create a festival, and this festival could never happen without a global village of individuals from California, Newfoundland, Manitoba, Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, Cuba, South Africa, the D. R. Congo, and beyond who helped us plan this event here in Ontario. Special thanks to our team which met at Grebel every month, to distant editors who helped shape events via 2:00 AM emails, to composers who volunteered to compose new works, to Mennofolk performers who are gracing our event with a full afternoon and evening of concerts, and finally, to three Grebel persons who have managed to keep things sane when insanity could have reigned! Thank you, Meg Bauman, Jennifer Konkle, and Fred Martin. You’re the greatest!

~ Carol Ann Weaver


Bus Transportation to Detweiler Meeting House

A free bus is available to transport you to Detweiler Meeting House. It will leave from the Grebel parking lot at 9:15am Sunday morning.

Map to Detweiler Meeting House

Driving directions to 3445 Roseville Rd, Roseville, ON from 140 Westmount Rd. N, Waterloo, ON 17.2 km – about 27 mins

Turn left out of the Conrad 1. Grebel parking lotHead southeast on West-2. mount Rd N 8.2 km Turn left at Fischer-Hallman 3. Rd 7.5 km Turn right at Roseville Rd 4. 1.5 km


Map to First United Church

Driving directions to 16 William Street West, Waterloo, ON from 140 Westmount Rd. N, Waterloo, ON 2.2 km – about 4 mins driving or 20 mins walking

Turn left out of the Conrad Grebel parking lot1. Head southeast on Westmount Rd N 2. 0.6 km Turn left at Father David Bauer Dr 3. 1.1 km Turn left at Erb St W 4. 0.2 km Turn right at Caroline St S 5. 0.3The back parking lot is on the left behind the church6.

52 - Sound in the Lands

Event Sponsor:

Conrad Grebel University College

Mennofolk Concert Sponsor: Friday Concert Sponsor:

Saturday Concert Sponsor: Sunday Concert Sponsor:

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