Both liturgical and classical music come alive through interpretation. Each musician takes and breathes their breath into the shell that the composer has created.

I have my training in classical composition, and have dealt with the issue of the ‘performer’ many times, and in many different ways. In the academic circle, I tend to create music that forces the performer to step outside their ‘comfortable’ zone, and put a great deal of themselves into the piece. The music I create for the church is the opposite, and attempts, at all costs, to be ‘performable.’

I have often been pegged as (only) a bluegrass/folk musician, when my training is classical, and my composition style quite varied. I am now recording a ‘pop’ album in the city with some incredible musicians… I played and wrote mostly jazz/funk in college. I have been in a dozen rock and roll bands. I have studied Arabic music in Jerusalem…

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The road for any new liturgy or music to be adopted by a congregation is rocky at best. My goal is to create music that is easy to play by any variety of musicians, and easy to sing for the congregation. The reason I choose folk as the medium for much of my liturgical music is because it is accessible by both old and young church-goers.

We need to search for the commonness between us — to worship together as one people of God. Tell me — when did we last see children worshipping on a regular basis with the elderly among us? We segregate our young from our old. How could that be good?

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More important than the genre for me is the community of faith. I welcome all music that works to try to unite us! To take worship out of the hands of the few, and bring it to all of us, so that we can pray and sing together. There’s no band up front making loud music that half of us don’t like, and the remaining half simply listen or dance to. There’s no staid organist droning the bars while we sing the songs that our grandparents sang. (Though I enjoy both praise and traditional music myself — I’m just being a devil’s advocate here!) There are liturgies that both old and young can embrace together.

I love Mozart. He pushed the limits. As did most classical composers we know and love today. But we don’t use Mozart’s music the way it was intended for use. People of his time interacted with the musicians, shouted for them to repeat a movement if it was especially daring and incredible… Now we have become afraid to interact with our music, to try new things, to reward innovation.

I challenge every church to ask its banjo players, its accordion and tuba players, violin and oboe players, and so on, to step forth and join in this psalm-like chorus of instruments and voices!