A Weekend of Music

This weekend has brought the confluence of two major musical events in at Unity Church, offering an overwhelming amount of energy and activity.

The Arthur Foote Music Festival has been in planning for some time, and it came to wonderful fruition on Sunday, with both choirs, percussion, and strings, leading to powerful performances of Eric Whitacre's "Cloudburst" and Ben Allaway's "From This House To The World".

Through the efforts of Unity Church member Rick Heydinger, the Shades of Praise gospel choir was flown to St. Paul for a weekend of performances at various local churches.
The choir was fabulous and energized, and had even us arrhythmic and reserved types up moving and clapping. We hope these event will lead us into partnership with both historically black and white churches to work on common social concerns, to 'build the Beloved Community', to use M. L. King Jr's. language.

While one could play or listen to music in isolation as part of a personal spiritual practice, making and enjoying music together as part of a religious community has a tremendous power that goes far beyond the personal. We need to remember the importance of music in our various religious communities.