Eternal, changing God

This love song to the Creator has a fresh vision of God as open to the unfolding reality of the universe. This is the dynamic God of the Bible, giving and receiving, rather than the static, ‘the unmoved Mover’ of Aristotle.

The music is evocative and worshipful, catchy and rhythmic. It conveys a sense of God’s constant and ceaseless activity in creation. It is suitable as a wedding hymn, where Christ is our Song of Songs.

Go!

In this short recessional hymn, God renews both people and the earth. The trees clap their hands, the hills melt like wax and the rivers rejoice. It helps the congregation to leave the service with a sense of hope.

The refrain uses a hunting-horn motif. Instead of calling people to the hunt, it challenges God’s people to ‘find Christ in the world’.

God's new day

This subversive and playful ordination song declares that ‘the old boys club’, with its exclusion of women from sacramental ministries, is now history.

The words are set to the nursery-rhyme tune, Girls and boys come out to play (c.1650).

Land and people sing

This hymn evokes the God of creation through images of New Zealand’s wild rivers, mountains, indigenous forests, coasts and skies. The four verses ask the Creator to absolve, pray through us, change us and work through us.

Jane Simpson's music conveys a sense of longing and fulfilment, ending with an upward movement. Suitable for major feast days, national days, school assemblies and in Lent.

See Grünewald's dying Christ

This Lenten hymn, based on Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece (c.1509-11), is about Christ’s dying and our struggle to be authentically human. It affirms that Christ’s dying can free us in paradoxical ways. In impasse or ‘the dark night of the soul’, as all images of God are laid bare, God is freed to be God.

The tune is ‘Leoni’ from Thomas Olivers, who wrote The God of Abraham praise (c.1770). It has the rich cadences of the Yigdal, the Hebrew Confession of Faith.

Shepherds leaping

This Christmas carol by Jane Simpson and Bill Ahlers evokes a Middle Eastern context. It focuses on the shepherds, who received the news of the Messiah’s birth, while going about their normal work, in this case doing night shift.

Each verse starts mysteriously as starlight swirls and angels get caught up in the drama. As in a madrigal, there is a change to a dance rhythm at the refrain as the shepherds run and leap with almost naive charm to see the promised child.

Song of the seasons

Like the seasons within nature, the liturgical seasons are sources of seemingly endless variety, novelty and contrast. This joyous hymn celebrates them, culminating in Pentecost, and tells the story of Jesus through these seasons.

Dotted rhythms and syncopation energise the music. Repeated verbs and tight textual patterning make it suitable for congregational singing and by children.

Truth to power

People detained without trial, journalists locked up, and Jesus crucified have all named injustice and confronted authorities who abused their power. This hymn with an Amnesty International theme honours them.

Harmonies by Chris Graham express the pain and longing of those who suffer in the cause of justice. The refrain conveys a sense of hope, which, paradoxically, may be strengthened by the experience of suffering. Barry Brinson wrote the choir version.

Tussocks Dancing

This energetic song arose from Jane seeing her five-year-old son whirling in the tussocks on top of Mt Herbert. The imagery is both light and dark; salvation is like a mighty river, ‘sweeping, scouring and making new’.

This is the first piece Jane and her husband, Bill Ahlers, wrote with their friend, Peter Low. Syncopation brings out the energy of the text; Peter’s writing for the piano and woodblock helps this piece to dance. There are some dissonant harmonies, but the music is not too complex for most congregations to learn and sing well.

TO HEAR THIS MUSIC ON CD-QUALITY TRACKS

Hear Poiema Voices singing by clicking onto the mp3 files.

Poiema Voices’ full hour-long CD of music will be launched in the spring. Copies may be bought by mail order through the website. Many of the a cappella hymns written in 2000 can be heard later this year on TVOne’s ‘Praise Be’.

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This page last updated: 13 November, 2002 11:38 PM

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