Feeling trapped by your circumstances? Depressed, anxious, not eating…that’s how the book of 1 Samuel begins. Listen to Hannah’s story and the hope it reveals in my recent sermon, Hannah’s Rising. I pray and read the scripture first. Sermon starts @ 7:27.
In Revelation 5:8, John reports seeing four creatures and twenty-four elders, holding golden bowls of incense and kitharas. A kithara (κιθάρα), sometimes spelled cithara, is often translated “harp” in English. Here is someone playing a modern day replica.
I’m super proud of Della. She recently entered a portrait of our dog Buttercup into a painting competition and it turned out amazing. Vote for it if you want. Della’s Instagram post has a video clip of the painting you can see.
Max Richter summarizes the state of classical music and why he took a different path.
When I went to university, in Edinburgh, I was like, “Let’s just forget about that for a minute and concentrate on Boulez.” Classical music is a very historical artform, in the sense that all classical music is built on what’s come before: At the beginning of the 20th century, tonality explodes, you get into serialism, and then you get into more and more deterministic music. So Boulez serializes everything: rhythm, duration, dynamics, all structural elements—everything is an expression of a formula. It was considered a historical imperative to do the next step in that, if you were a serious composer. If you were an idiot, then you could write tonal music [laughs] but no one would play it. Which is one of the reasons I started making records. No one’s going to play this, so I better just try and record it myself.
[Tehillim] is peak Reich, where everything comes together. It’s a setting of the Psalms for his ensemble and vocals, and it’s just the most fantastically put-together, virtuosic, beautiful, expressive sonic object. His music, and the music of Arvo Pärt, were triggers for me to move away from the modernist compositional language—the super-complex idea of every piece as a technical manifesto—and towards having a conversation, speaking intelligibly, and connecting.
Read the full article: “Max Richter on the Music That Made Him” (HT: Marginal Revolution)
Have you listened to the Humble Skeptic podcast yet? In the first episode, Shane explores faith and doubt through an investigation of his dad’s account about being in Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” bar.
🎵 Listening to Copper State, an Arizona-inspired, jazz-country album from Arthur Vint & Associates released today. It’s great. (HT: Tucson Sentinel)
NASA Guide to Air-filtering Houseplants infographic by lovethegarden.
Interesting stat regarding the recent Arizona primary elections: “Statewide, there were 131 races with only one candidate, which comes to about one-fourth of all the seats that were up for grabs in the primary elections.” (Tucson Agenda)
Finished reading: Bridge-Building Apologetics by Lindsey Medenwaldt. Audio available on Libby. 📚
See how one of the most important rooms in America has been decorated over the years. It’s hard to choose a favorite.