Calvin College

CALVIN - Minds in the Making

Festival of Faith & Music

FFM 2007

Conference


Workshop A (Fri, 2p)

 

Awake My Soul Film Showing
Matt Hinton
Commons Annex Lecture Hall (200)
Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp is the first feature documentary about Sacred Harp singing, a haunting form of a cappella, shape note hymn singing with deep roots in the American South. Shape note singing has survived over 200 years tucked away from notice in the rural deep south, where in old country churches, singers break open The Sacred Harp, a 160-year-old shape note hymnal which has preserved these fiercely beautiful songs that are some of the oldest in America. The film offers a glimpse into the lives of this "Lost Tonal Tribe" whose history is a story of both rebellion and tradition. The filmmakers, Matt and Erica Hinton, spent seven years documenting this yet largely unknown art form.

 

Signs of Life in Music, Film & Culture
Josh Jackson
Fine Arts Center 222 (34)
Co-founder Josh Jackson gives a history of Paste magazine's search to find arts and culture worth celebrating over the last five years, including the ways that faith has shaped the operating philosophy.

 

Off the Record
Money, Art, Relationships and Puns
Michael Kaufmann
Library—Meeter Center Lecture Hall (80)
Stories from the assistant director of Asthmatic Kitty Records about the challenges of community and success, the myth of independent integrity, and other borderline heretical embarrassments.

 

The Cry of the Exodus, Part 1
Music of People in Struggle
The Psalters
Chapel (800)
A culture's climate usually goes hand in hand with the art and music that comes out of it.  It is no surprise than, that the richest, most comfortable, luxurious culture in history is currently producing volumes of apathetic, boring, complacent, self-focused pop (popular) art that models itself on corporate techniques and advertising.  In our journeys trying to understand the struggles of the oppressed and the refugee, we have seen and felt and heard that the most passionate, transformative music comes when people are forced to leave the dominant culture, walk together in pain, enter into it and reflect about hope as a community. What does this say then about our "Christian nation" and its multi-million dollar "Christian" music industry and thousands of worship artists? Let us listen.

 

The Search for Hip-Hop's Moral Center
Bakari Kitwana
DeVos Communications Center—Bytwerk Theatre (115)

 

The Soundtrack of my Spiritual Memoir
Lauren Winner
Fine Arts Center 220 (46)
Winner talks about the music that has been present and influential in her work and life journey so far.

 

The Times, They are a Changin'
Activism and popular music
Adam Wolpa
Fine Arts Center 224 (69)
Through listening and discussion, this session will explore strategies of social, political, environmental, and spiritual activism in a wide range of musical styles. From Woody Guthrie to Minor Threat, the music that we will discuss attempts to further certain agendas that would be less effectively presented in other ways for the artist. This might also beg the question, "Is all art political?"