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LWCP

The Living Water Composition Project

Living Water is the choir which I directed, first at Valley Church (Cupertino, California), and later First Presbyterian Church (Mountain View, California). When we used big words, we called ourselves a “multigenerational, non-audition, creative arts outreach ministry”. In real-people words, that means anyone can join us, that they don’t need any experience, and that with us they’ll be using music, drama, and other ministry tools to touch lives for Jesus Christ.

Some people claim that this sort of age-mixing can’t/shouldn’t be done, but in our case God has used it to produce a rich synergy between older and younger members, and to provide those with less experience with the benefit of years of training. The cooperative and loving atmosphere which the Lord has brought to our rehearsals and performances, and the feeling of family is truly wonderful. But enough philosophical discourse and digs at segments of the establishment…

It all started back in 1989 when I was attempting a songwriting project on behalf of our erstwhile senior high ensemble. Circumstances led to the project being transferred to Living Water. Ever since, I’ve been writing new additions to the Living Water Composition Project – and since each song is dedicated to one of the members of Living Water, I expect that this opus will never be finished…

LWCP, 1989-1990

LWCP – The Beginning The 1989-1990 season was marked by a number of profound changes in Living Water’s ministry. We had just completed our first summer season, and I’d already decided to have us continue year round. It also was the first year that I personally felt a reasonable level of “ownership” as our director …

LWCP, 1990-1991

LWCP – Gathering Momentum The second volume of the Living Water Composition Project expressed a greater level of compositional maturity (at least in my own thinking). The previous year’s experience in writing music had been a good education, and so I had new tools and a better perception of what could (and could not!) be …

LWCP, 1991-1992

LWCP – The Real Fun Begins! After three season’s worth of LWCP songs, I was out of the woods. The number of members who had not yet had songs written for them was under twenty (possibly under twelve), and so the frantic feeling based on realizing the magnitude of the task at hand was largely …

LWCP, 1992-1993

LWCP – The Fun Continues The fourth set of Living Water Composition Project songs was smaller than any of the previous three years; in fact, it was only slightly more than half the numeric output of the year before and only a third of the second year. As far as I could tell, however, the …

LWCP, 1993-1994

LWCP – Well-Established Although there were “only” five songs in the fifth volume of the Living Water Composition Project, it was interesting because they covered such a wide style range. The LWCP songs appear to be remarkable in their stylistic latitude, but the new entries this year stretched the envelope even farther. For instance, “Sojourner’s …

LWCP, 1994-1995

LWCP – More Adventures The sixth year of the Composition Project definitely was an interesting one in that there was a lot more stylistic exploration on my part. The five songs were in Gospel, contemporary, Sixties traditional choral, a cappella choral, and quasi-hip hop styles; I found this to be rather remarkable in retrospect – …

LWCP, 1995-1996

LWCP – Seeking New Vistas The seventh year of the Living Water Composition Project was a busy, busy one in many ways other than music. I got into working on Choraegus ShareMusic more (and actually made some sales!), worked quite a bit on this Web site, and returned to the Valley Church handbell choir, among …

LWCP, 1996-1997

LWCP – Explorations The eighth volume of the Living Water Composition Project was a more satisfying one. I made time to write a decent number of songs (Volume 7 was a little disappointing in this respect – only!). Also, I think that the music in this set of songs has more of the peculiar charm …

LWCP, 1997-1998

LWCP – Rejoicing The ninth year of the Living Water Composition Project seemed to be more of an extension of the previous year’s work than a separate entity of its own (well, duh…). But in many ways it did indeed have a character of its own. For one thing, two of the songs, “No Matter …

LWCP, 1998-1999

LWCP – Looking Back I have to admit that I was really, really busy with other things during this season – eight tutoring students, plus some fair level of involvement with my brother’s company as the head geek. But maybe it was good for me… I needed a sort of sabbatical after nine straight years …

LWCP, 1999-2000

LWCP – A Bit More Progress This was a difficult year to write music because I found myself fairly involved with administrative duties at church, plus all the other “normal” responsibilities I assume and I took a job with a dot-com. But we all know the story of the dot-coms… too bad! Thankfully, there are …

LWCP, 2000-2001

LWCP – Hoping This was another high-load year, especially with going through being laid off for the first (and hopefully the last!) time – the tech sector’s downturn cascaded through a huge number of companies, and so I was a victim of the economic situation. But God continued to provide, and now I’m in a …

LWCP, 2001-2002

LWCP – Other Horizons Open Up I managed to write a couple of new songs… but “only two” was distinctly unsatisfying. So I really need to put out some more effort next season! I decided that a bit of diversion might be helpful;between circumstances and the amount of energy I’d been expending on choral writing, …

LWCP, 2002-2003

LWCP – Time for Memories to Begin With my focus moving so much into handbells over the past few years, and my choral ministry winding down in general, it seemed it was time to let the Living Water Composition Project go. There was a melancholy feel from this realization, but at the same time the …

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