Music Re-Release from Khrysso!

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Babethandaza 2:13
Traditional black South African.

Sweet Honey in the Rock says that the words are Xhosa (an ethnic group living mostly in urban South Africa). Cape Town womyn sing this chant, which means, “Our mothers used to pray” or “Our mothers prayed before us” as they dance at the openings of their gatherings of celebration and prayer.

©1996 Khrysso, fka CRWagner.

Seal Song 4:32
Traditional Hebridean “mouth music.”

I learned the two basic parts of this piece from Bill “Willow Fey” Rodgers of Brisbane. He learned them from singer and composer Sarah Hopkins, who told him that the song was used to “call” seals and is thus linked with the Sylkie myth cycle about half-human/half-seal beings who could shed their seal skins and come ashore to live among people.

Choral arr. ©1996 Khrysso, fka CRWagner.

In Our Finest Hour (tune SLT* 242, 336) 3:15
Words: ©1996 Khrysso, fka CRWagner, b. 1959.

Music: “Adoro Te Devote,” Solesmes version of a plainsong melody, first published in 1697 in the Paris Processional. Solesmes is a town on the Sarthe River in the northwest of France and home to a Benedictine monastery.

Choral arr. ©1995, 1996 Khrysso, fka CRWagner.

White Coral Bells 1:12
Traditional English round.

Yes, I know I do it “wrong.” So goes the folk process...

I Give Thanks 1:43
Words and Music: ©1979 Christa Heiden Landon, b.1949. By permission.

Christa says, “This song came to me at a time of deep disappointment and has always empowered me.”

Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child (SLT* 97) 3:23.
Traditional African American spiritual. The folk process is at work in this song, too...

Dona Nobis Pacem (SLT* 388) 2:00
Traditional Latin canon, dating from the 16th century, based on the Roman Catholic liturgical prayer Agnus Dei (Lamb of God).

The words mean, “Grant us peace.”

I Know This Rose Will Open (SLT* 396) 1:15
Words and music: ©1989 Mary E. Grigolia, b.1947. By permission.

Love Round/Dear Friends 2:05
Both traditional.

Radical Faeries who gather at Short Mountain Sanctuary in Cannon County, Tennessee, sing, “dear friends, queer friends.” This is, of course, a good thing when one is a Radical Faerie.

Ancient Mother 4:23
Traditional Navajo prayer.

Choral arr. ©1996 Khrysso, fka CRWagner.

Summerset Fires 3:01
©1995, 1996 Khrysso, fka CRWagner.

Hineh Ma Tov (SLT* 392) 3:43
Traditional Hebrew round.

The words, which mean, “How good and pleasant it is for kindred to dwell together in unity,” are from Psalms 133:1.

Come, Creator Spirit 2:32
Words: adapted by Khrysso, fka CRWagner, and Diana Vezmar-Bailey, b. 1941, from the “Golden Sequence,” from the Roman Catholic prayer Veni Sancte Spiritus (Come, Holy Spirit).

Music: Chant, Mode I.

Phoenix 4:24
Words and music ©1991 Chaotic Good.

“Used by permission, shared with joy,” says Sharon Good (b. 1952), the song’s creator, whose intent is not that this piece masquerade as an authentic Native American chant but rather that it might honor the genre that it reflects.

Sumer Is Icumen In 1:21
Middle English, from a late 13th-century manuscript transcribed and possibly composed by John of Fornsete, a monk of Reading Abbey, and now preserved in the British Museum.

It is widely held to be the oldest existing example of part-music in the English language. The words mean, roughly, “Summer is come in, loudly sing cuckoo! Seeds are growing, mead is blowing, and new wood is springing. The ewe bleats after her lamb, the cow lows after her calf, the young bull starts [in the sense of moving quickly as when startled], the buck turns [or, perhaps, turns about in frisky sort of way]. Merrily sing cuckoo! It is well for you to sing cuckoo; never cease from it.”

Make New Friends :59
Traditional.

I first heard this song from my beloved friend Karen Greenlee. Until cancer claimed her in 1989 at the age of 34, she created laughter and joy—and friendship—wherever she went.

Rise Up, O Flame (SLT* 362) 1:00
Words: Anonymous.

Music: attributed to Christoph Praetorius, d. 1609.

Babylon/Avalon (SLT* 279) 3:14
Original words and music (Babylon): William Billings, 1746-1800, based on Psalms 137:1.

New words (Avalon): Pagan revival version.

O My Soul (tune SLT* 18) 3:36
Words: rewritten by Khrysso, fka CRWagner, ©1996.

Music: “Wondrous Love,” attr. James Christopher and dated 1840 in The Sacred Harp.

Icelandic Prayer 3:09
Words: Anonymous translation.

Music: The grade-school textbook in which I ran across this song described it simply as an “Icelandic folk song,” but then it went on to characterize it as church music of the ninth century.

The use of organum (parallel-fifth harmonies) clearly hearkens to mediæval music of northwestern Europe, but since Iceland wasn’t Christianized until the eleventh century, the song, if it is indeed that old, is likely rooted in Norwegian church or Pagan traditions (or both), the Norwegians having only begun populating Iceland in the ninth century.

Choral arr. ©1996 Khrysso, fka CRWagner.

Himmel Und Erde 1:49
Traditional German round.

The words mean, “Heaven and Earth must change, but music remains.”

Rejoice Over You with Singing 3:27
Words: ©1996 Khrysso, fka CRWagner, inspired by Zephaniah 3:17.

Music: ©1985, 1996 Khrysso, fka CRWagner.Total Playing Time 58:19

* Selections marked “SLT” may be found in the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993).

Performers:

Khrysso:

vocals & arrangements throughout;

Yamaha FG-410 12-string guitar on “Rejoice Over You with Singing,” “Hineh Ma Tov,” “Love Round/Dear Friends,” & “Ancient Mother”

JCRockwell 6-string hourglass fretted dulcimer on “Summerset Fires”

Folkcraft 4-string teardrop fretted dulcimer on “Icelandic Prayer”

rhythm on “I Give Thanks,” “Phoenix,” & “Ancient Mother”

Sandi Vitek:

rhythm on “Hineh Ma Tov” & “I Give Thanks”

Christa Heiden Landon:

vocals & rhythm on “I Give Thanks”

Yamaha DX7IID with Performer 3.64:

chimes on “Icelandic Prayer,” programmed by Jerry Rockwell

Production details:

Recorded March & April 1996 in Columbus, Ohio by Sandi Vitek with Yamaha MT100II multitrack audiocassette recorder & Audio Technica dynamic microphone.

Mixed & mastered at Metropolis Recording Studio in Columbus, Ohio June 1996 by David Sifritt with Mackie 8-bus 24 channel mixer, Behringer SNR 2000 denoiser, Ibanez SDR stereo reverb, Yamaha EMP 700 stereo processor, two Yamaha D1500 digital delays, Panasonic SV3700 DAT recorder, NeXT digital editor, & Singular Solutions A/D 24-bit conversion.

Converted from DAT to CD format March 2003 in Athens, Ohio by Tim Kanke with Panasonic SV3800 & Yamaha CRW-F1 CD recorder, & DigiDesign Pro Tools.

MP3 clips created in Columbus, Ohio by Steve Sweeley.

Artist Bio:

Khrysso Heart LeFey is the Director of Liturgical Music Studies for the Pagan Institute. He has been steeped in liturgical music since age 8, when he was invited to join the boychoir at St. Louis Catholic Church in Louisville, Ohio, under the direction of the late lamented James L. Caldwell.

Over the next 25 years, Khrysso belonged to religious groups across a broad spectrum of Christian experience, from a Radical Religious Right cult through liberal Roman Catholicism to ecumenical gay-affirmative communities. In each community he delved into its musical life, exposing himself to ways of expressing and celebrating a huge array of world views through song.

During his years as an evangelical Christian he wrote dozens of songs based directly on the Christian scriptures, and he is currently working on re-casting those songs according to liberal religious sensibilities so that they might be available to worshipers who embrace the religious paradigm that he no longer ascribes to.

In 1993 he began exploring Neo-Paganism and Unitarian Universalism. He met and began co-creating worship with Rev. Christa Landon in 1994, when she became the Interim Minister at Dublin UU Church in northwest Columbus, Ohio, where Khrysso was serving as Music Director. Together Christa and Khrysso have collaborated on dozens of songs, hymns, and chants with UU/Pagan sensibilities.

Khrysso’s passion for multicultural exposure to music and for inclusive creation of song began during these years. He released the tape version of I’ll Have My Chants… in 1996. His goal was to expose listeners to an array of worldviews and musical traditions while keeping within the frame of reference of western ears.

He has taught dozens of workshops on liturgical musical topics at folk festivals and at all kinds of gatherings of Unitarian Universalists. He was a member of the UU Musicians Network from 1996 through 2001 and an active (and often controversial) member of the UUMN e-list for many of those years.

In 1998 Khrysso was elected to the Board of CUUPS-continental, on which he served for two years.

In 1999 Khrysso entered the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, a school associated with the United Methodist Church with a diverse population of faculty and students that, at the time, included UU Pagans, Sufis, Humanists, and Theists as well as Jews, Buddhists, members of at least two dozen Christian organizations, and others who shunned (or defied) labeling.

While at Iliff he was on the president’s task force on Community Worship and was awarded two liturgical-arts scholarships, the Oma Wimberly Peyton Award and the R. Allene Sather Award. He graduated from Iliff in 2002 with a Master of Theological Studies degree.

He was invited to join the faculty of the Pagan Institute in 2002 and has been contributing to the PII/CUUPS-TC e-zine since that fall.

After a lifetime of religious affiliations, Khrysso has chosen to live for a time without formal ties to any particular religious movement, though he remains enthusiastic about the work of CUUPS-TC. He identifies as a Pantheist and an Interfaith Community Minister. However, he reserves the right to change his labels at will and insists on only using ones with removable adhesive.

Ordering Information:

This CD retails at $15.00 plus shipping and handling. To order, contact us, and, we'll forward your request to Khrysso.