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“Awake up, my glory” is a setting of Psalm 57 [KJV]. Sungji Hong wrote the music and submitted the setting. This text is a call for all of creation to joyfully praise the Lord our God. I tried to capture this idea of joy at God’s unmerited goodness and grace.
Psalm 57
How does this psalm piece interpret the psalm?
“Awake up, my glory” is a setting of Psalm 57 (KJV). This text is a call for all of creation to joyfully praise the Lord our God. I tried to capture this idea of joy at God’s unmerited goodness and grace.
It was written in the spring of 2019 for the Deus Ex Musica composition project “A Musical Exploration of the Psalms,” performed by Megan Roth and Julia Carey at Old South Church in Boston on June 28, 2019. The piece is scored for soprano and piano.
It is a psalm full of praise, blessing, worship, and glory.
Text and Music: Psalm 57; Sungji Hong, © Sungji Hong
Used by permission.
Contact: Sungji Hong, sungji.hong@unt.edu
Why and how did psalm singing become such a hallmark of Reformed worship? Join Dr. Karin Maag for a fascinating journey through time, from Reformation Geneva to Scotland and from the Netherlands to New England, exploring the roots and impact of metrical psalm singing. Along the way, we will hear the voices of early modern Christians as they learned how to sing the psalms, both in unison and in harmony.
Vinroy D. Brown Jr.—conductor, musicologist, educator, and minister of creative worship and music at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City—explores the vibrant intersection of Black sacred music and the psalms. He talks about Black composers and how they have reimagined the psalms through choral music, spirituals, and the gospel tradition for the benefit of everyone.
John Goldingay, an Anglican priest and the senior professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, posits the psalms are the densest material in the entire Old Testament. They expound the nature of God as the compassionate, faithful, and committed one, but also as the one who makes demands upon us. The psalms help us talk to God, even about difficult things—and when we do, we are talking to someone who is in a position to do something about it.
Why and how did psalm singing become such a hallmark of Reformed worship? Join Dr. Karin Maag for a fascinating journey through time, from Reformation Geneva to Scotland and from the Netherlands to New England, exploring the roots and impact of metrical psalm singing. Along the way, we will hear the voices of early modern Christians as they learned how to sing the psalms, both in unison and in harmony.
Vinroy D. Brown Jr.—conductor, musicologist, educator, and minister of creative worship and music at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City—explores the vibrant intersection of Black sacred music and the psalms. He talks about Black composers and how they have reimagined the psalms through choral music, spirituals, and the gospel tradition for the benefit of everyone.
John Goldingay, an Anglican priest and the senior professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, posits the psalms are the densest material in the entire Old Testament. They expound the nature of God as the compassionate, faithful, and committed one, but also as the one who makes demands upon us. The psalms help us talk to God, even about difficult things—and when we do, we are talking to someone who is in a position to do something about it.
Sister Kathleen Harmon of the community of the Ohio province of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Dayton, invites us to be transformed by the psalms and experience them as the whole story God is revealing to us. As we keep praying and singing them, the psalms interpret us, and that’s when the transformation comes.
