On three cool evenings in March a group of men and women gathered in the 1820 Meeting House at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky for a very special mission. These were men and women that are volunteers in the village choir - the Pleasant Hill Singers. They assembled, not to perform a candlelight program for Village visitors, but to unite their voices in recording a new album of Shaker music. This was a historic event for a couple of reasons: it was the first time the Pleasant Hill Singers had ever been recorded and, they were recording mostly songs written and sung by the Shakers of Pleasant Hill. When the recording process was finished the results were contained on a magnetic tape holding 35 songs performed authentically by the group.
The recording was made in the Meeting House, built in 1820 (at left); photo by John Stines
The recording process was quite special. To take advantage of the wonderful acoustics for singing it was decided to attempt to record in the 1820 Meeting House itself rather than add reverberation at a later date in a studio. This presented a problem in deciding how to mike the group. It was decided to use only one microphone to record everything. This is unheard of in the process of modern recording but the results were fantastic. Of course the choir had to be constantly aware of diction and extraneous sounds such as foot tapping and coughing. The recording was made live in this manner.
The recording takes its title from one of the songs on the album: "Music of Angels: Songs of the Shaker West" and, it is hoped, will be on the shelves by late June or early July. The album selections were chosen with the guideline that all songs were to have been written by members of Shaker communities in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana (the Shaker west). Songs were selected based on text and melody. Some of them are quite unique and novel....most have never been recorded before and many have never even been heard by the modern public. For the sake of variety, the Singers included a couple of Shaker songs that have been arranged in modern four-part harmony. Otherwise all the music on the album is original Shaker music performed authentically in unison and a capella. This recording was created as a labor of love not only by the Pleasant Hill Singers, who provide the vocals, but also by the Shaker authors and composers who created this antique and yet, marvelously new and fresh body of music. Just as Shakers poured their love of the Shaker life into these songs, the singers have poured their love of the music into this recording.
Directed by Dr. Vicki Bell and Randy Folger, the Pleasant Hill Singers is a volunteer group of people who come together several times a year to perform Shaker music at Pleasant Hill and elsewhere. They participate because this music has touched each of them in some inexplicable way. Perhaps the Shaker spirits were present as the Singers poured their hearts and voices into this work. We hope they were pleased.