The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass

Sing a New Song Series

By Carol Barnett

We performed this piece in 2012, and are reprising it this year. Our church is a Unitarian Universalist congregation in North Carolina, and I was looking for a piece written exclusively by women. Plus, we have a lot of bluegrass fans in our church, which is another plus. The music...

is NOT strictly bluegrass, and the composer only uses the style as a jumping off point for some really terrific and subtly complex choral compositions. The rhythms are often startling and a bit hard to teach, but all the time signature changes and rhythmic complexities are in service of the cadence of the words, which I find delightful and enlightening. You really need to have the recommended players for the piece to be successful. You cam't do it with a piano or even just a guitar. The music is richly varied, and includes a gorgeous and powerful a cappella movement as well. There are numerous solos, duets and trios sprinkled into the piece, which provided lots of opportunities for individual solos.

I performed this composition in March 2010 and May 2010, playing guitar in the five piece bluegrass ensemble that backs the chorus. This is one of the most moving and uplifting works of music that I have ever performed. It is not an easy work, particularly the numerous time signature...

changes. The chorus must be skilled and comfortable with close harmony. The biggest problem is finding a bluegrass band that is comfortable reading difficult music. The guitar score is 30 pages and required many edits as the composer does not play guitar and did not notate the many musical quirks for bluegrass guitar. For example, some movements require the use of a capo in order to obtain the proper chord voicings on guitar. This work is highly recommended as is the commercial recording by Philip Brunelle.