New book on music by Shaker women and men

[Hrogerl]

Dear SRM-SIG,

I'm pleased to announce the publication of my new book.

Roger Lee Hall, ethnomusicologist and composer

       Gentle Words: The Meaning and Message of Shaker Music (PineTree Press, 2019)

The new edition of this book is divided into several sections. Part One has information about Shaker music history written by a past Shaker member, Sister Lillian Phelps.  There are also interviews with two past Shaker singers from New Hampshire and an interview with composer, Aaron Copland (1900-1990), whose arrangements of the Shaker dance song, “Simple Gifts,” helped to make it known throughout the world.  Part Two has lyrics to twenty-five (25) Shaker spirituals which the author has discovered and written about and also recorded many of them.  At the back of the book are four Shaker song arrangements.  There is also an accompanying CD with all 25 Shaker spirituals available separately.  For more about this book, see this link: http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/GentleWordsbook.htm