A message from the Sacred Music Intensive Course Director regarding SMI 2024

It is with sadness that circumstances required us to put SMI on hold for the next two years due to the much-needed renovation of our Music Addition building (the “round” building housing eleven of our pipe organs and many of our rehearsal spaces).   My faculty colleagues and I have pondered every possible scenario that could allow us to offer a 2024 course that meets our high standard but any solution resulted in a reduction of time for organ practice, the hassle of commuting throughout Bloomington for practice and lessons, lack of rehearsal space for Walter Huff, a fragmentation of the daily rhythm that balances activities and social time, as well as  a sizeable registration hike to cover instrument and space rental.

The news is not all bad!  I’d like to bring to your attention two new programs  that will be of interest to many of our SMI alumni.

We are now taking applications for our new Performer Diploma in Organ Improvisation. For further details contact Jeffrey Smith at <js72@iu.edu>  or see information about this program elsewhere on this blog.

Those living close enough to commute to Bloomington can enroll in private lessons through our community music academy. The year-round Jacobs Organ Academy  is a program for pre-college students 10 years and up, and adult learners. Learn more at: https://jacobsacademy.indiana.edu/descriptions/jacobs-organ-academy.html

Just as we weathered the pandemic and came back as strong as before, I know we will return in 2026. In the meantime, I wish you continued joy in your work and study.

All best,

Janette Fishell, SMI Course Director

Jacobs School of Music’s 2023 Sacred Intensive Course

June 5-9, 2023

How Firm a Foundation:

Hymning the Faith in a Changing World

Help us celebrate the 10th anniversary of our founding in a conference centered around praise and proclamation through communal song.

Please plan to join us in beautiful Bloomington, Indiana for this week of musical, intellectual, vocational and spiritual renewal.

     SMI offers church musicians 18 and older private and group instruction in organ performance, service playing, choral conducting, group vocal techniques and literature taught by SMI faculty Janette Fishell, Walter Huff, Marilyn Keiser and Christopher Young.  Additional events will feature an opening Hymn Festival, concerts and recitals performed by faculty and students, a lecture on selected hymnals found in the Lilly Research Library’s impressive sacred music collection, a lunchtime carillon concert and tower tours of the Arthur R. Metz Bicentennial Grand Carillon, as well as  time for personal connection and reflection, all in the bucolic setting of one the nation’s most picturesque campuses.

This year’s courses include the followed “most requested” topics from past courses:

Course website and online registration expected to go live by early January.

Questions?
Email Course Director Janette Fishell at jfishell@indiana.edu

Memories of past SMI courses

SMI 2014 Faculty Recital, Christopher Young, Stephen Price, David Kazimir, Janette Fishell and Bruce Neswick.

Our first SMI Final Concert.

2015 SMI Faculty:  Bruce Neswick, Janette Fishell, Christopher Young, Walter Huff, Marilyn Keiser and David Kazimir.

2017 SMI Chorale’s final concert.

Read the review

The American Organist September 2017

2018 SMI Chorale, final dress rehearsal before “The Road Home.”

2020 SMI Faculty

Socially-distanced and streamed SMI 2021:  Persevering through the Pandemic

Monday, June 7, 8 pm: Recital from Auer Hall

Organist: Janette Fishell, Professor and Chair (Organ), Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University.

Narrator: Judah M. Cohen, Professor of Music (Musicology) and Lou & Sybil Mervis Professor of Jewish Culture (Borns Jewish Studies Program, College of Arts and Sciences), Indiana University.

Petr Eben’s Job for Organ:  

Art and Spirituality in Counterpoint 

Why do bad things happen to good people? This question is as ancient as the story of Job and as new as Covid-19.   We begin our virtual SMI week with a dramatic setting of the biblical story of Job by visionary Czech composer Petr Eben, a cycle that grew out of the composer’s life experiences and faith. The performance will be enriched by commentary that explores how themes such as suffering, faith and redemption shape this profound composition.

Tuesday, June 8, 8 pm:  Masterclass

Presenter:  Marilyn Keiser, Chancellor’s Professor Emerita of Music (Organ), Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University.

Prelude to a New Year:

Organ Voluntaries for a Time of Renewal 

Some new ideas for service music that will inspire both you and your congregation.

Wednesday, June 9, 8 pm:  Recital from First Presbyterian Church, Bloomington

Organist: Christopher Young, Professor of Music (Organ), Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University.    

Sunday Music, Old and New

Including selections from the collection 101 Chorale Preludes: German Organ Works and Organ Performance Practices of the 17^th and 18^th Centuries, edited by John Brock and Quentin Faulkner, soon-to-be-released by Wayne Leupold Editions, performed on the Paul Fritts organ of First Presbyterian Church, Bloomington.

Thursday, June 10, 8 pm: Masterclass

Presenter: Walter Huff, Professor of Music (Choral Conducting), Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University.

Prepare Ye the Way

Techniques for preparing your weekly choir rehearsal, including tips on score study and demonstrations with a small choral ensemble.

Friday, June 11, 8 pm: Recital

Organist: Vincent Carr, Associate Professor of Music (Organ), Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University.

Grand Music for a Great Space

Masterworks spanning the ages provide a grand finale to our virtual SMI week.

20210607_2000_ah_iuml_SMI-Fishell&Cohen

SMI 2022 Memories

Lessons and performances on our two C.B. Fisk concert hall instruments, treasures of the Lilly Library,

events at the Metz Grand Carillon, Bloomington in bloom.

Associate Instructor of Carillon Lynnli Wang.

2022 SMI closing concert program