Three New Pieces Posted on Cameratapress.com

The two YouTube pieces are now posted on the website. The Master's Touch appears under For Mixed Voices, A Cappella and In the Garden of the Lord is included under For Mixed Voices, Accompanied. A third piece recorded by Camerata Press Chorale, Still, Still With Thee, is now also in the a cappella section. Cameratapress.com guests will now enjoy being able to see all the pages of each musical score posted. Naturally, unauthorized copying is possible, but it is hoped that a prominent watermark will be a sufficient deterrent. 

In the Garden of the Lord uses original music and has a text by Helen Keller. Permission to use the text was graciously granted by the American Foundation for the Blind. David Seitz wrote the piece on commission from a choir member while David was music director at First United Methodist of Mishawaka, Indiana. The Helen Keller text opens and closes the piece while the Appalachian folk hymn "The Lord Into His Garden Comes" provides a lilting center segment. For the recording Ellen Kraybill sings the soprano solo and Christine Larson Seitz is the pianist. 

The Master's Touch is set to original music and was inspired by two texts. The nineteenth century Scottish cleric and hymn text author, Horatius Bonar, chose the arts of music and sculpture as images for his poem. David, intrigued by the additional symbolism of the potter's art, also set "Have Your Own Way, Lord" by Adelaide Pollard as this piece's bridge.

Still, Still With Thee is an arrangement of the tune CONSOLATION drawn from Mendelssohn's Song Without Words, Op. 30, No. 3. This deeply devotional morning hymn impresses us as one of the most poetically beautiful texts in all of hymnody. Heidi Ferris is the soprano soloist for the recording.  

—David A. Seitz