Shine As The Light

This Sunday is the International SET at the Temple in the city. If you live near here I highly encourage you to go. Above is a live recording of the NYSB playing the amazing piece entitled Shine as the Light. The GNY Youth Band will be playing this on Sunday. It is personally my favorite band piece EVER! Oh and the Bates are the special guests! Who would want to miss that! And the youth chorus is singing in spanish. It's going to be a wonderful, Jesus filled event.

Here are the program notes in the score....
Shine as the Light follows traditional Salvation Army band music principles in its programmatic or story telling outline.
In essence, the music depicts a journey from darkness to light, expanding on the theme of Joy Webb's song, The Candle of The Lord, which lies at the larger work's core. Webb's song provides both the textual and thematic basis; in particular, the falling figure (a minor 3rd) with which the song's chorus concludes, "Light Me" is utilized at key points in the music.
The extended climax of Shine as the Light commences with a selection of aleatory (i.e. random) music where cornets and bells literally picture-paint Webb's evocative line, "a myrid of tiny flames expanding to a whole." Underpinning this free section is the phrase "light me," repeated three times in the lower brass with ever increasing intensity. the phrase metamorphasizes into Chick Yuill's majestic praise song with which the work concludes: "NO MORE WE WALK IN DARKNESS THE LIGHT HAS COME!"
This music is dedicated to the memory of my friend and colleague Captain Al Honsberger.

It is such a moving piece. It has my favorite song in it so how could I not love it. It's hard to get through the piece without shedding a tear. Again for the second time on this blog are the lyrics to the song The candle of the Lord.

How great the darkness
How deep the need!
How vast the problems of indiff'rence, hate and greed.
A world rejecting the truth once known
And slipping down into a nightmare of its own.
Is there a LIGHT that's strong enough to go,
And metamorphasize the darkness that we know.

I am the candle of the Lord,
And truth and love more powerful than sword!
O fan the flame, its single gleam diffuse,
AND LET MY SPIRIT BE THE LIGHT THAT YOU CAN USE.
I am the candle of the Lord!

AMEN!

p.s. To Captain Brett DeMichael who told me he reads this....Four words for you! HOW BOUT THEM GIANTS! hahahhahaa I told you they would win!!