Category: Holiday music

Caught up! (I think…)

With this one–All Bless the One–(video below) I think I’m finally caught up on having demos of all my choral pieces.

All Bless the One is an extremely easy but equally fun anthem to sing and play. It’s 2-part mixed so it works with the smallest of choirs. The text is my poetic paraphrase of Daniel 3:52-90. The accompaniment may be either organ (with or without pedals) or piano. This is one to keep in the choir’s folders for those Sundays when not everyone shows up…it’s an “emergency anthem.”

Here’s a link to a YouTube playlist of all my choral pieces to date: Choral and Vocal Music by HKJ. These were all written for actual use in the context of my job as a church music director or that of friends (such as Linda Ruescher who was responsible for my commission by the Academy of the Holy Names). I’m retired now, but I’m so grateful to the choir at Lakewood UCC for their patience in doing my music. It really helps to have a real-world purpose for writing a piece.

Sheet music for All Bless the One is available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1084655/Product.aspx and https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/all-bless-the-one-digital-sheet-music/21985223.

CONDITOR ALME SIDERUM 

The recent flurry of posts is the result of my recent retirement from my position at Lakewood UCC, giving me the time and energy to try to complete demos of everything I’ve written. I’ve only a few more to do, then I can go back to being the dormouse in the Mad Hatter’s teapot.

Conditor Alme Siderum, is a Gregorian plainchant, translated as “Creator of the stars of night,” and is an Advent text. Nevertheless, the tune is familiar and I’ve made two arrangements of it, both usable and originally written for Easter but usually any time, actually.

The first is this one for SAAB choir to the text Awake My Soul and with the Sun by the anglican cleric, Thomas Ken. SAAB is a useful voicing for many choir directors of small choirs because, as mine did, they seldom have real tenors but plenty of baritones, and usually anymore, twice as many altos as real sopranos.

My other arrangement of Conditor Alme Siderum is for pipe organ, intended as an “Easter Fanfare.” You can see they’re somewhat the same. My harmonic language, generally, owes a lot to Erik Satie, which I unabashedly admit and which I have been repeatedly criticized for. Too bad. If you’re familiar with his Messe des pauvres you’ll see/hear it even in my approach to organ compositions. I have a recording of it I made at the Tampa Bayshore Baptist Church ages ago. Re-releasing it on BandCamp is on my ToDo list.

Awake, My Soul: Sheet music available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/2255073/Product.aspx and https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/awake-my-soul-and-with-the-sun-24027132.html
O Loving Founder of the Stars (organ): Sheet music available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/2255075/Product.aspx and https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/o-loving-founder-of-the-stars-24027136.html

Church choir directors!

Even if you’re already got your Christmas music in rehearsal you might still be stuck looking for an Advent anthem that’s not morose and an Epiphany anthem that’s uptempo. Here’s two you might consider for those needs:

The Songs of Mary and Hannah which is for 2-part mixed choir (unison women, unison men) and piano or organ. I’m not exaggerating when I say this is sight readable by any church choir. It’s also fun to sing. The texts are based on Mary’s Magnificat and its parallel antecedent in the book of Samuel. I had an earlier blog post on this one. The video is of the Lakewood UCC choir last Advent. The score is available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/2122993/Product.aspx and https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/the-songs-of-mary-and-hannah-23890938.html.

And for Epiphany, this one: Brightest and Best of the Stars of the Morning, “sung” here by a Cantai synthesizer. I’d love to get even a cellphone recording of a human choir doing it. This one isn’t quite as easy as the first, but a very small choir I subbed as director for learned it in one pre-service rehearsal, so it’s not difficult. You can judge for yourself; the video tracks with the score. The score is available for your choir at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/2246958/Product.aspx and https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/brightest-and-best-of-the-stars-of-the-morning-24017557.html.

Two EZ Advent Anthems!

Church music directors chaff at the bit to do Christmas things during Advent, but of course one is not supposed to do that, and for good reason: Advent is a season of spiritual preparation. It’s penitential and introspective. It’s even colloquially referred to as the “little Lent” and its anthems and texts are often somber…unlike Christmas music, which is fun!

That’s why I wrote these two anthems. The texts are 100% Advent, biblically and theologically, but instead of stressing the reflective nature of Advent, the texts stress joyful anticipation of the coming Christ. Musically, they have lilting tempi and both the words and the music are emotionally positive.

The Songs of Mary and Hannah pairs the song of Hannah from the book of Samuel with Mary’s Magnificat (parallel narrative themes are often linked between the Jewish Bible and the Gospels). The text of The Dream of Love was inspired by a sermon by The Revered Kim Wells, pastor of Lakewood UCC, St. Petersburg, FL. (Note: The Dream of Love starts briefly in minor but almost immediately transitions to resolute, sunny E major!)

Here are the two anthems as videos: first, the St. Petersburg, FL Lakewood UCC Choir doing The Songs of Mary and Hannah followed by a score video of The Dream of Love.

These anthems are available online at the following sites:
The Songs of Mary and Hannah: Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus
The Dream of Love: Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus

Carol of the Birds (Curoo, Curoo)

It’s Eastertide, nevertheless, this wonderful Irish Christmas carol from the 1800s, was the next on my project list: getting caught up on posting all my choral pieces and arrangements to Hal Leonard’s ArrangeMe.com. Part of that getting caught up is making score videos and posting here, as well as getting the links inserted on my Compositions page. When ArrangeMe gives me the publication links, I post those to YT, IG (personal & business), and here.

That’s part of my cycle of completion. I remember reading Stephan King—in his book on writing I think it was—that he wondered if writing weren’t some sort of physical compulsion. That the hand needed to be putting words on the page. For me, writing pieces and arrangements are times when I lose complete sense of time, even hunger. And I’m not able to turn that compulsion off until I’ve completed the cycle. Getting audio and score and links posted (a tangible record of the effort), such as this post, completes the cycle.

So…thanks for putting up with my compulsion!

4 Sets of Trumpet Descants on Familiar Christmas Carols

Sheet music should be online at sheetmusicdirect and sheetmsicplus by 10/6/25. These four sets can be played, a different descant for every verse, or the performer is welcome to pick and chose which to do and for which verses. This recordings shows them all in an order that works if all are done in a set.

A Christmas Concert

On Christmas Eve at my church job, I play an extended 30+ minute prelude. These are the pieces I’ll be playing: https://soundcloud.com/hilton-kean-jones/sets/a-christmas-concert-ive-piano. This is in an “album” order (best ones first), but at church, I’ll do it in exactly reverse order (best ones last since it’s an extended prelude and folks are pretty rowdy early on). That URL will be in the Xmas Eve Bulletin so if people want to hear the pieces again later, they can. These are all self-published arrangements of mine available at sheetmusicdirect and sheetmusicplus. This album cover was done by Nathan Jones, my son, for an earlier CDR release; the recordings linked to here are all new and I think I’ve done a better job of performing them and mixing them than the old CDR album.
#piano
#music
#christmas

Curoo, Curoo (Carol of the Birds) for pipe organ

I originally arranged this for trumpet and organ, then a friend asked for a cello and piano version. But, most of my sales are for solo piano or solo pipe organ music, so finally figured out how to keep the original counterpoint and do it for one person playing a pipe organ.
#pipeorgan
#organ
#christmasmusic
#carols

Sheet music available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1659348/Product.aspx and https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/curoo-curoo-carol-of-the-birds-for-pipe-organ-22916771.html.

Curoo, Curoo (The Carol of the Birds) for trumpet & organ

I wrote this arrangement of a traditional Irish Christmas carol, Curoo, Curoo (The Carol of the Birds) for solo melody instrument and keyboard (in this demo, trumpet and organ). Sheet music available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1656611/Product.aspx.


#Christmasmusic
#organ
#trumpet

Rummaging through boxes…

I’m getting all my trumpet descants in one spot, and ran across this. Aa a working composer/arranger I keep unearthing stuff I’d long forgotten I’d done. I’m also trying to find the 8 or 9 descants I’d written for Don Owen for one Christmas Eve service. They gotta be here someone…LOL
#music
#trumpet
#christmas