Sunday, February 3, 2008

Yay Sunday!

If I can make it to church on Sunday, I'll be all right after that.

I got an e-mail tonight that included sheet music from the new hymn, "What is This Thing that Men Call Death", with text by Gordon B. Hinckley and music by Janice Kapp Perry. The e-mail also included some text that seemed to have been written by the author about how the hymn was written. I'm not one to fall for e-mail hoaxes, so I decided to check it out... and found out the story was true.

Apparently Sister Perry found out about a poem that Gordon B. Hinckley had written and they printed it in the program for her niece's funeral just a couple of weeks ago. Then Sister Perry requested permission from President Hinckley to set the poem to music. She did, and sent a copy to him for his approval. The approval arrived just after his death.

Sister Perry has made the sheet music of the hymn available to anyone who would like to use it for noncommercial church or home use. You can get a copy e-mailed to you following the instructions on her website:
Janice Kapp Perry
You can also download a copy from the website of Steven Kapp Perry's radio podcast:
The Cricket and the Seagull Fireside Chat
And here are a couple of news stories about the hymn, including the one from ABC 4 with video footage of the coverage:
ABC 4
Deseret Morning News

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