By Davya Flaharty & Matthew Hammond
Davya’s Great Uncle Howard invited us to sing at his active retirement community in Vacaville (SW of Sacramento). He sweetly purchased a dozen poinsettias which decorated the top of the baby grand piano in the dining room where we were to set up for the concert. Uncle Howard and his fellow residents seemed quite excited that we came!
On arrival, one of the guests began to belt out Amazing Grace. How did she know it was a part of our set list? What an awesome way to be welcomed! Matthew has his own version of Amazing Grace that he composed on the piano. It will be on our upcoming duet album Love Only Grows (which you can pre-order here). Of course, this time around we knew we had to sing the original version of Amazing Grace on guitar first so our audience could sing along with us. They had already proven themselves to be a vocally robust group. We followed it up with Matthew’s version so they could hear a very different version. Matthew likes to make the point that there is always room for new melodies that breathe depth and soul into the older songs and hymns. We can’t wait for you to hear our duet version we recorded in St. Louis with Matthew on piano and a gorgeous string quartet arrangement by Peter Stevens. It is so powerful!
The rest of our set list included most of the songs from the Love Only Grows album plus a few of the latest songs that we’ve composed together with some of our Hymn Writing Workshop participants from this past August . The biggest hits among these recent compositions were The Sustaining Infinite and Let Go, Let God (you can hear our latest versions that we recorded with Karen and Dale in Dallas right here) These songs have very catchy refrains that you can sing like a favorite prayer over and over again. The residents caught on quickly and sang along with such gusto! We could tell they were very grateful for the Christian elements of our repertoire.
It’s our hope that with every concert and hymn sing, our audience feels the presence of the divine in the music that we sing TOGETHER, not just with each other as a duo, but with everyone who joins us in this form of musical communion. We’re quite clear that it is not our aim to perform or even entertain. We’re here to be a creative and inspiring reminder; our music a catalyst that re-opens hearts and minds to God’s tender love for each and every one of us. Each of us is a vessel for Divine Love if we allow ourselves to be.
With this in mind, our mission statement for our Love Only Grows Music Ministry has been refined to reflect this:
Our mission is to share the transformative power of singing our prayers together — to reach sincere seekers of Truth wherever they are and support them in rediscovering their wholeness.
Amen!
