By Emily Miller

REXBURG—Brigham Young University-Idaho will hold its 16th Annual Hymn Festival this weekend, a culmination of the work of local poets and student composers. The festival will be held this Friday, October 8 at 7:30 p.m. in the BYU-Idaho Barrus Concert Hall. 

Seating is limited to BYU-Idaho staff and students because of COVID-19 precautions, but will be livestreamed for anyone to watch and sing along to the new hymns. Click here for the livestream. 

Daniel Kerr, BYU-Idaho Director of Organ Studies, oversees the Musicianship program at BYU-Idaho. He says live and virtual attendees can expect to hear brand new hymns created over a long process of collaboration between the lyricists and the composers. 

“Last fall we solicited new hymn texts and poetry to be written,” Kerr says. “We chose a few and forwarded them on to composition students here in the music department.”

Kerr says the printed program for the festival is “like a little mini hymn book.” The program will also be posted online for those who participate via the livestream. 

“The organist will play through once and then we just launch in and sing them,” Kerr says. 

Some of the music will feel familiar and like they’d fit with the hymns we are accustomed to, Kerr says. Other compositions break from the traditional sound and are more contemporary and “a little bolder than what we’re used to.”

In addition to the new compositions, students have also prepared pieces that integrate new verses into the traditional favorite hymns, “Be Still, My Soul,” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Each hymn will be prefaced by a reading of the scriptures that inspired the music. 

BYU-Idaho’s Collegiate Singers will join the program for two pieces of their own, including an original piece by a member of the choir. 

Kerr says the ability to write music is something that comes quite naturally to the students who have contributed compositions for the festival. 

“It’s something of a unique skill,” he says. “When they look at the texts, the melodies almost just come to them.”

He says the students’ exposure and internalization of hymn melodies throughout their lives has prepared them to be able to create music. 

“It’s almost like an artist working with metal work or wood work, or a sculptor,” Kerr says. “They have that inner musical ear to know what kind of shape is going to fit that musical text.”

BYU-Idaho students and staff can register for free tickets here. The live audience will be limited to 150 participants, but Kerr hopes many will join the festival virtually. 

“We hope many people can tune in and enjoy singing and experiencing some of these new hymns,” he says.

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