“What Child is This?” YouTube Link
“What Child is This?” 8 singers, 1 violinist – ARTICLE Link
Thank you to members of my Ward and Stake at Church who joined with me to record this arrangement! It really came together with a bit of mixing and editing!
Guest Singers:
- Emily Clark (Violin)
- Emily Dalton
- Melinda Spence
- Kayla Lacy
- Brian Campbell
- Brad Leishman
- Kevin Forbush
- RD Parsons
This beautiful Christmas Carol was recently added to the LDS Hymnbook. This arrangement features a violin & vocal solo along with SATB harmonies. The vocal solo part could be sung by a group of youth as we we will be doing for our Sunday Sacrament program this Christmas! You can find the sheet music here. The PDF has the full score, the violin part alone, as well as each of the vocal parts & piano part alone to print as needed.
Here is an excerpt from our Christmas program that will be read by a narrator be we perform this arrangement!
The beautiful, haunting greensleeves melody was combined with William Dix’s poem “The Manger Throne” to create the popular Christmas carol, “What Child is This?”.
- In 1865, William Chatterton Dix, at 29 years old, faced a near-fatal illness and a bout of depression. This experience led to a spiritual awakening, prompting him to delve into the Bible and write poetry.
- Dix’s poem…explores the contrast between the divine nature of the baby Jesus and his humble surroundings in the manger.
President Russell M. Nelson spoke of this contrast as well, saying…
“[Jesus Christ’s] birth occurred in humble circumstances among the animals. There the ‘Lamb of God’ (John 1:29) was born during Passover season among animals being prepared for paschal sacrifice. And one day, He would be ‘brought as a lamb to the slaughter’ (Isaiah 53:7). He was both the Lamb and the Shepherd….
“From His example, He taught that we, too, can arise from the depths of our individual challenges — our sadness, weakness and worries — to reach the heights of our own glorious potential and divine destiny. All this is possible by virtue of His mercy and grace” (First Presidency’s Christmas Devotional, Dec. 6, 2020).
Thank you to Steve Pierce Photography for the nature images/footage! He does such beautiful work.
And thank you for listening!!
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*Reach out if you would like the sheet music for any of the arrangements I don’t have sheet music for yet and I will transcribe and post them. You can find the songs I already have sheet music for here: http://marileekaymusic.com/sheet-music/
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