budafulmusic

My second choral piece with SoundForth, Come Quickly, Lord is a new hymn that I was privileged to work on. Glad to be a part of the growing ChurchWorksMeida family!

Read Chris Anderson’s blog here.

Note from the publisher:

“Here is a new arrangement of a well-loved ChurchWorksMedia hymn. “We long to hear the joyous cries and join the ransomed throng” is a believer’s plea to see Christ. With decorative piano accompaniment and swelling voices, this anthem will be a favorite of your choir and takes little time to rehearse.”

Come Quickly, Lord

Another Christmas post.

Season of Light is a new Christmas musical from Majesty Music that I helped put together. It is my first endeavor with them with Christmas music. The focus of the musical is Christ, the Light of the world. In the drama, Mary and Joseph both have individual responses to this light and is contrasted with the wicked king Herod.

My favorite part of this program is at the end. It ends uniquely– not a seasonal song or medley– but with a wonderfully haunting, minor tune set to “The Light of the World is Jesus.” The recording for this piece turned out especially well.  Listen below.

Come to the light, ’tis shining for thee;
Sweetly the light has dawned upon me.
Once I was blind, but now I see:
The Light of the world is Jesus!

The Light of the world is Jesus!

Once finished, the choir and congregation join as one simply singing Silent Night, Holy Night by candlelight.

Light of the World

I’m pleased to present my first SoundForth published choral piece , O Come, All Ye Faithful. An arrangement of the original tune/text, this is one of my favorite Christmas hymns because of it’s inerrant nobility and majesty.

Here is how SoundForth describes the piece:

“Unique chord progressions and rich harmonies characterize this new arrangement by talented newcomer Brian Buda. Optional congregational participation and a soaring soprano obbligato infuse the music with vibrancy.”

JWPepper has also listed the arrangement on there editor’s choice catalog. Here’s what they said about it:

“A sturdy way to begin Christmas worship, this setting of the traditional carol is arranged for every choir. Written for SATB voices, piano, optional soprano descant and congregation, it is a fitting choice for opening your Christmas services.”

I’m excited about this publication, and am looking forward to posting about more music I’ve arranged for the up and coming Christmas season.

O Come, All Ye Faithful

The premiere of Paul Keew’s A Christmas Carol is over but the recording is now being made available on sacredaudio.com. Listen to samples and download the original cast recording here.

A new choral collection put out by Majesty is now available. We Are Your Church contains 11 pieces, 5 of which I arranged. I’ve included new audio samples of each of them below. These songs are heart felt and are good songs that can aid in your church worship service. We Are Your Church is a good mixture of perennial hymn texts freshly styled and combined with new sacred songs.

Complete In Thee

The Fountain

All Glory, Laud, And Honor

The Cross Of Christ

Treasure Of My Heart

This fifth and final choral piece was actually the first that I arranged for Majesty this time around. The old hymn text has been set to a relatively popular new tune by Ben Nyce. This setting takes a rather restrained yet harmonically colorful approach to the text:

Complete in Thee! No work of mine
May take, dear Lord, the place of Thine;
Thy blood hath pardon bought for me,
And I am now complete in Thee.

Complete in Thee—each want supplied,
And no good thing to me denied;
Since Thou my portion, Lord, wilt be,
I ask no more, complete in Thee.

Listen to an audio sample here.

Here are two additional samplings of music that I arranged for Majesty’s new choral collection. It and the full recording will be released later this summer. 

The Fountain

This well known Cowper text is treated with a new melody by Ben Everson. I first heard this tune but didn’t care to much for it. I have to admit that it grew on me and now I think it is one of the stronger pieces in this collection. A very placid and calm opening with the lines “There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.” My favorite lines are at the close of this arrangement: “E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.”

All Glory, Laud and Honor

The not so familiar text about the triumphant entry, All Glory, Laud and Honor is paired with the very well known hymn tune, Ellacombe. Very fanfare-ish in nature, this piece captures the excitement of the text and rises to a climactic and memorable end. When I first started with this arrangement, I was nervous. I new of no less than 6-7 exsisting arrangements of this tune and was concerned that I might copy something from one of them in some way. Sometimes having a really good aural memory can work against you.

Posted here are a few mp3 samplings of a few of my arrangements that I wrote for my friends at Majesty Music. All the orchestrations are by Tim Fisher. They were recorded at Aire Borne Studios. These selections, among several others, will appear in Majesty’s new choral book, due to be released this summer. More about that and more audio samples in a later post.

The Cross of Christ

text: The cross of Christ my treasure; the blood of Christ my plea;
His sacrifice for sinners, my hope eternally. My life is hid in Jesus—my Lord, my God, my King. The cross of Christ my treasure; the blood of Christ my plea.

Treasure of My Heart

(this preexisting childrens arrangement receives a full choral treatment) text: Jesus, You are the Treasure, Treasure of my heart. I’m amazed at Your beauty and all that You are. My everything, the song I sing, my sun, moon and stars, Jesus, You are the Treasure, Treasure of my heart.

Today’s post will focus on a new hymn tune I composed for one of my absolute favorite texts. William Cowper’s relatively unknown text for ‘God Moves in a Mysterious Way‘ conjures up metaphors of nature that teach us that God has a plan in everything that happens, no matter what the seemingly frowning providence might be, God hides His smiling face. He has the birds-eye view while we only see what is happening here and now.

The C-minor tune has some Vaughn-Williams tenancies which I find to be appropriate for the English text. Not being a particular fan of picardy third endings, I still end the tune with a bright major sound that hopefully portrays the mystery of the text. I wouldn’t end each stanza with the bright, happy sound, perhaps just the 1st & last stanzas.

God Moves in a Mysterious Way

It’s been a busy start to the new year. Here are some of the things that I’ve been doing musically over the past month and a half of blog silence:

• Composed musical score for a short animated video
• Wrote out a half dozen choral pieces, more on this to come
• Orchestrating some choral music for a recording project, more on this also to come!
• Working on ideas for two commissions