By Jean Anne Shafferman

Editor’s Note:  Jean Anne Shafferman is not only a friend and consulting editor for Jubilate Music Group, but also the Founding Editor of the Alfred Sacred catalog.  We welcome her to our blog page with this wonderful contribution for such a time as this!

Thursday nights usually find me in my church sanctuary, exhorting my choir to sing God’s praise. In the process, we study scripture and its inspiration for our anthem texts. We explore the partnership of musical phrase and text declamation. We exercise our breathing and, in so doing, experience the inward rush of the Holy Spirit, sustaining our phrases and replenishing our physiology. (Out with the bad air, in with the good!) We match our vowel sounds, achieving better unisons while gifting us with the inexpressible joy of what I call “achieving ensemble” – many voices becoming one. We sing of sin and salvation, sickness and health, joy and sorrow, feast and famine, love and hate, justice and oppression. And we pray together. In the process, we minister to one another, and depart the sanctuary uplifted by the very special ministry of music-making.

That’s choir rehearsal. College Hill Presbyterian Church. Every Thursday night at 7:30.

Until now.

Suddenly my choir is no longer gathering by (Thursday) night to serve God. Seeking home sanctuary from this dread disease, we are removed from our beloved church sanctuary. We are isolated. We yearn for fellowship and song.

I challenge myself: how can I continue to minister to my choir during a pandemic?

Communication is key. I resolved this past weekend to utilize my choir email chain – you know,  that “gentle reminder service” that I use to tell everyone to “spring their clocks forward?” Yes, THAT one. It is now my primary music ministry tool.

I’ve implemented a plan to email daily “Music Ministry Moments.” On Sunday, I emailed an audio link for the anthem we would have sung (a pity, it was a choir favorite!), along with some scripture and inspiration. On Monday, as the citizenry of San Francisco was being ordered to shelter in place, I thought, “If we ever needed the Lord before, we sure do need Him now!” YouTube has a marvelous performance of that song by Take 6, so I emailed that link. I’m writing this on Tuesday – St. Patrick’s Day – and preparing to email the text of St. Patrick’s Breastplate and an audio link to a choral recording.

For the rest of the week, I’m considering the following options:

• Hymn of the Day – A link to its citation on hymnary.org, directing them to the appropriate tabs for listening and inquiry.
• Great Performance of the Day – A link to great choral performances, as well as information about the selected piece. Choral Net (choralnet.org) hosts a wide variety of ACDA (American Choral Directors’ Association) performances; select the “Video” tab. And I can pick any favorite piece and find a worthy performance of it on YouTube.
• Scripture of the Day – A link to a daily devotion and an anthem that corresponds to it, preferably featuring both audio AND score clips. Daily devotions are widely available on the internet and on the websites of our own denominations. I found a wonderful Worship Music Planner on Jubilate Music Group’s website, with all manner of scripture citations and corresponding anthem links with recordings and scores: https://jubilatemusic.com/pages/worship-planner
• Singalong Day – I got this idea from Jubilate’s current online promotion. How much fun it would be to sing along with the recording as the score flips by! The “note readers” in my choir would rise to the challenge, and the “rote singers” will follow along blissfully, as they do. Check out the interactive promotion on Jubilate’s home page: https://jubilatemusic.com/
• Meet the Composer Day – I recently shared with my choir a video interview with Pepper Choplin that I found on Facebook. They loved it! Composer bios, audio recordings, and select video interviews are available on major publisher and retail websites. On Jubilate’s website, I’ve found blogs about Lloyd Larson, Tom Fettke, Mary McDonald, and many more. https://jubilatemusic.com/pages/authors

Currently my church staff is working to expand our regular communications with our congregation at large via email and ZOOM technology. I’ll be sure to share with them some of these “Music Ministry Moments.”

I’m hoping that some of these ideas might be useful in your ministries, and we would love to benefit from the sharing of your ideas. Send any ideas that are working for you and your choir to info@jubilatemusic.com.  We'll share them on the Jubilate Music Group Facebook page as possible.  I’ll close with a portion of the prayer attributed to St. Patrick:  

Christ be with me, Christ within me
Christ behind me, Christ before me
Christ beside me, Christ to win me
Christ to comfort me and restore me
Christ beneath me, Christ above me
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger
 

Jean Anne Shafferman-A popular clinician and conductor, Jean Anne has presented church music clinics throughout the United States and Canada. A published composer and arranger, Jean Anne has authored over 70 choral works, 20 children's musicals and Christian elementary song collections, five anthem collections and two SATB Christmas cantatas. Her anthem titled Carry Me Home was performed at the American Church in Paris, France, on September 13, 2001, during that country's official memorial service for the Sept. 11 tragedy.

An active church musician, Jean Anne is Director of Music at College Hill Presbyterian Church in Easton, Pennsylvania, where she conducts two choral ensembles and previously directed the youth music ministry. Additionally, she served several terms as the Eastern Division Music in Worship Chairperson for the American Choral Directors' Association (ACDA).

Jean Anne has served as Harold Flammer Church Editor for Shawnee Press; as Director of Church Choral Publications for Alfred Publishing Company; and as Managing Editor of church choral publications for The Lorenz Corporation. She earned her B.M.E. in music education (piano and voice) and M.A. in music theory from the University of Kentucky and was inducted into the U.K. School of Music Hall of Fame in February, 2002. She has served on the faculties there and at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. She has been a member of the famed Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, since 1983, and has performed with the choir in such celebrated venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, Germany, King's College Cambridge, and Royal Albert Hall in London. Performing with a small ensemble from the Bach Choir, Jean Anne has appeared twice on NBC's Today Show.

Jean Anne lives in Easton and has two grown children and four grandchildren.