5th Annual All-day Cooper Book singing and Thanksgiving leftover feast.
Maine Sacred Harp Singings
There are over 450 people on the Maine Sacred Harp Singing Announcement email list. Many of you are regular SH singers in Maine. Many of you are our good singing friends from out of state. And then a good number of you are not active Sacred Harp singers, but are folks who've had some passing exposure to this form of singing and remain curious enough to continue to receive our weekly announcements of upcoming Maine singings.
On Saturday Nov 29th we'll be holding a special "All-day" singing from the Cooper edition of the Sacred Harp, at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church at 885 Shore Rd. in Cape Elizabeth Maine.The Town of Cape Elizabeth is adjacent to South Portland. We'll be singing from 10 to 3. Coffee will be available at 9:30.
Those of you who have been singing for a while will be familiar with the Cooper book, but some of our newer singing friends will not. The Cooper revision of the Sacred Harp (known as the "Blue Book"), was first published in 1902 and resulted in somewhat of a schism in those early years.
It continues to be the favored Sacred Harp book in South Georgia, Florida, parts of Alabama and Texas. In the last few decades it has also become a popular alternative book in Minnesota and Pennsylvania.
The Blue book has many of the same tunes that we sing in the Denson editions (the 1991 "Red Book" and 2025 “Green Book“). In addition it contains a body of newer tunes that its compiler added in 1907 and which have continued to be added with each new revision.
The book is stylistically "different" from the "Denson" editions. If you're not familiar with it, I'm not going to try to describe the difference. You'll just have to come sing with us next Saturday !! We'll have loaner books available.
In 2019 we held the first annual all day Cooper Book singing in the North East here in Maine. We were interrupted by covid in 2020 and 2021. We resumed in 2022 and now this will be our 5th annual singing.
So.. I hope many of you can join us. Being an All-Day singing we'll be having a potluck noon day meal. This is a perfect opportunity to share some of your Thanksgiving leftovers… a half a pie.. turkey in whatever form.. whatever you might have. And if you are unable to bring food DO NOT let that keep you away.
We will have windows cracked for good ventilation and will also be using very effective air filtration units.
If you are not feeling well that morning PLEASE don't come. We'll miss you but will be looking forward to having you with us when you're feeling better.
So there you are.. If you weren't at the earlier Annual North East Cooper Book singings, come to the 5th!!
Volunteers to help with setup and such would be great. Let us know by response to this email or phone/text to Chris Holley at 207-307-0770 or this year's chair, Kerry Cullinan at 802-318-8733.
As always, feel free to come and go over the course of the day. And one more thing.. On the following day we will also be holding a 5th Sunday Denson version Sacred Harp Book singing at the Portland New Church at 302 Stevens Ave from 12:30 to 3:30. So come for both days.
Stay well and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Chris Holley for Chair Kerry Cullinan