Blog


Oct 18

“Cause for Praise,” this Friday

2011 | by Trent Hunter | Category: Events

A few weeks ago we published a blog announcing and introducing this year’s Cause for Praise concert. Ahead of the event, which is this Friday at 7:00 PM, I asked Drew Hodge, our music leader, to answer a number of questions about this year’s concert.

1) Briefly, what is “Cause for Praise”?

Cause for Praise is an annual night of worship through song. This year is our second year and we hope to continue hosting the event every fall. Our desire for the event is to have people from all over Albuquerque come and sing, fellowship, and worship our great God in a way that’s a little different from a usual Sunday morning service. This year will be special in that we are doing a living room, unplugged kind of set. The musicians will all be on the floor for a close, family-like environment. Our prayer is that people come in and feel at home.

2) We know that DSC is releasing an album at this year’s Cause for Praise of songs based on various Psalms. What’s the story behind this album?

Yes! We are releasing Psalterium, Vol. 1, an EP (Extended Play) with five Psalms that we have put to music. Psalterium is Latin for Psalter which is a collection of Psalms, and this is Vol. 1 of what we hope to be a series of volumes, Lord willing. The songs came from our songwriting community that we call the Writers Guild. It’s a group our DSC writers that meet once a month and share music that we have been writing and receive encouragement and critique. Earlier this year I challenged the group to take the Psalm that is the same number as the day they were born and put it to music. My desire was to have more Psalm songs to sing with the church. Psalterium was recorded here at DSC and is the result of that effort.

3) What was the song writing approach for this album, in working from the text of a Psalm to lyrics for a song?

I told the writers to stay as close to the text as possible while taking some liberty with the text to adjust for rhyme and phrasing, changing a word here and there, or taking out a word or two to make it flow with the music. What we didn’t want was a song based on a Psalm. We wanted to sing the Psalm as closely as we could while still making it musically accessible.

4) Last year’s Cause for Praise was later released as a live recording. Will there be a live recording and follow-up album this year as well?

We will be recording this year’s Cause for Praise just like last year, but this year we will be releasing the songs one at a time in the coming months, instead of making a live record. That will give us more time to work on each song, and they will be available through the DSC website in the months ahead.

Admission is free and open to anyone, so plan to come, and bring a friend. Of course, be mindful that this is a live recording if you are including your children and, as always, don’t forget to silence your cell phones. We hope to see you Friday night!