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The SHIYR Poets: Brian Doerksen, Teresa Trask, Calum Rees, Brian Thiessen
We are a group of friends, songwriters and musicians who
have come together to create, record and perform progressive folk-rock settings
of the ancient Psalms. (You may need help in
pronouncing some of our names especially if you are not a Mennonite or born in
Wales, but for now we just want you to know that ‘SHIYR’ is pronounced ‘sheer’)
The ancient Psalms express the human longing for God with
poetic artistry and emotional force, releasing the voice of praise and the
universal cry of pain. Choosing not to censor out the dark and difficult
emotions, the SHIYR Poets render each psalm in its entirety, singing them in
solidarity with all who suffer. These are songs of desire and desperation . . .
songs that demand justice for the oppressed . . . songs that honor the innocent
praise of children . . . songs about everyday things like sleep. The Psalms,
taken as a whole, are perhaps the most emotionally healthy expression of
spirituality ever written.
When the Psalms are experienced and encountered in the order
published from antiquity, a profound narrative arc emerges. We journey, at
times through difficult terrain, so when we arrive at those moments of praise
and gratitude, they ring with authenticity because of the route traveled. Consider
the 22nd Psalm as the prologue to the 23rd Psalm. As Walter
Brueggemann said so insightfully, “In the Psalms we journey from orientation,
through disorientation to reorientation.” (Richard Rohr refers to this biblical
pattern as order – disorder – synthesis.) We are committed to art that contains
all three of those elements. Plus, just to demonstrate that we like living on
the artistic edge, we are also creating some new songs based on the song
fragments discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls. (Actually that part is because we have connections with some DSS
scholars.)
The writing of the first 12 songs is complete. The tracking
is all done. To give us a taste of what the final product would sound like, we
had 3 of the songs mixed by Shane Wilson from Nashville, who mixed them
beautifully and artistically! Then we were surprised with a generous gift that will
fund the mixing and album design costs.
We are so close to fully funding our
launch budget!
We welcome you to partner with us to bring this music home. The perks available are provided as a fun way to share this with you, but we are definitely not limiting you to those categories. We'll be very happy to receive any and all gifts of any amount!
If more
than our stated goal comes in, we will film a couple of simple music videos so we
can share these songs visually online. Any remaining funds will be invested
into our next recording. We are currently writing the next batch of Psalms, and
some of these are our favorites, so we can’t wait to get back into the
recording studio to continue the journey.
Thanks for playing your part in helping us make the world’s oldest
songbook new again.
Brian, Calum, Brian & Teresa.
