U.S. choral societies typically formalize themselves as secular organizations analogous to symphony orchestras and opera companies. Yet choral societies differ from symphonic or operatic organizations because almost all choruses depend on volunteer singers. Part of what attracts singers into choruses is a sometimes unacknowledged affinity between the religious traditions of liberal Christians and Jews and the culture of choral singing as practiced in formally secular choral societies. The liberal tradition in religion encourages a habitus toward music that might be called a "sense of liturgy": The interpretation of musical works historically and collectively, rather than as didactic works addressed to an individual. Although many canonical choral works are Christian in content, liberal religion encourages distancing mechanisms that allow people from other faith traditions, or none at all, to engage with these works. In short, the posture of artistic autonomy often found within formally secular choral societies, in which there is no overt religious test for membership, owes part of its genesis to the religious habits of liberal Christians and Jews. The present article explores this affinity by drawing on ethnomusicological fieldwork among choral singers in New England, as well as published accounts of a 1996 controversy over the performance of religious music by a public school choir in Utah.
Since its publication in 1844, the shape-note tunebook The Sacred Harp has primarily found use in the nonsectarian venue of the singing convention. Around the turn of the twentieth century, however, several promoters of Sacred Harp singing tried to identify the singing tradition more closely with impulses toward religious revival within Southern Protestantism. This identification was one of the factors that fueled a revival of interest in Sacred Harp singing itself during these years.
Since its publication in 1844, the shape-note tunebook The Sacred Harp has primarily found use in the nonsectarian venue of the singing convention. Around the turn of the twentieth century, however, several promoters of Sacred Harp singing tried to identify the singing tradition more closely with impulses toward religious revival within Southern Protestantism. This identification was one of the factors that fueled a revival of interest in Sacred Harp singing itself during these years.
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