Yesterday, I finally got to share one of the projects that has been occupying my work daily for the last couple of months.
This arrangement, a lullaby version of the Beatles’ “Golden Slumbers,” was written in a flurry the week after we lost a former student, Katherine, at 22. She was a beautiful soul and a passionate musician.
When her family shared that this had been a favorite lullaby, and that they had used the song to say goodbye to her in the funeral home, a concept came almost immediately, and the arrangement was finished in just a few days. Then came the painstaking process of building a recording. Thankfully, a dozen of Katherine’s friends – fellow singers from the Rockford HS Choirs and the WMU School of Music/Gold Company family – were able to remotely record their parts, mostly on their phones’ voice memo app.
It’s been a labor of love to put this together, and I’m beyond thankful to the singers who contributed their time to making it happen. Making art, mid-pandemic, has been blessing beyond compare. The result has been one of the best things I’ve ever written or recorded.
Please enjoy, share, and if you’re moved, contribute to the scholarship fund being created in Katherine’s memory. You can find more information at the Rockford Choirs Facebook page.
(I wrote several blogs about the process of working on this piece. You can read them here, here, and here.)