Gloria -- Dan Goeller

Three years ago, I was privileged enough to participate in the debut of a new work of music entitled The Word Became Flesh, composed by Dan Goeller.  For several months, my church choir, our youth choir, and a couple of other nearby choirs learned the music for this new cantata.  Many of the songs were new arrangements of familiar Christmas hymns, while others were original pieces written and orchestrated by Dan Goeller and his wife, Heidi.  Several churches chose to perform the work in 2008, but because we were the first, Goeller himself came to Bartlett (Memphis) to conduct us.  The music was already beautiful, but the opportunity to learn musical nuances directly from the music's composer was  uniquely memorable and inspiring.  After spending a couple of days in rehearsal with Goeller and the orchestra, comprised largely of members of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra and a few talented musicians from our church, we performed The Word Became Flesh in early December with Goeller wielding the baton.  To this day, that concert remains one of the most amazing and exciting musical experiences of my life; I've been a huge fan of Goeller's music ever since.  He has an intriguing knack for taking music and making it sound epic and majestic while keeping it very accessible for both singers/musicians and the audience.  I wanted to share a video of the finale of this piece, but I couldn't find one, so instead here is a home video from this debut concert, with my choir singing "Gloria In Excelsis Deo."  I am one of the teeny-tiny faces in the back row, just to the left of the left-side door.

While I can't show you the video for the finale, I can provide a link for the audio of "We Have Seen the Glory" on Dan Goeller's website, which my current choir sang for Christmas this year.  Most of Goeller's anthems have audio on the website...click around and listen to some of them.  They are wonderful!