I met Karl last Summer at a Calvin College event. John Witvliet, the director of Calvin's Institute of Christian Worship, invited fifty or so worship leaders and musicians from all around the country to discuss setting Psalms to worship. Karl was at a lunch table with a few of us who ended up sitting there for a couple hours longer than we should have. It was a refreshing conversation with some other fairly like minded worship leaders. I say "fairly" because I don't want to assume too much, but any chance to get to know worship leaders under the age of 40 who play guitars yet who are also leery of being caught up in and also lost in the worship gin mills--that is encouraging.
Karl is based at City Church in San Fransisco. He's near some incredible musical resources. Namely he's been able to regularly hire a composer to work with, Minna Choi of the Magik*Magik Orchestra. And Karl is recording at Tiny Telephone, John Vaderslice's highly coveted recording studio.
I asked Karl if I could steal some of his sheet music and he hooked me up with a sizable stash of material. Alas, I'm still on the learning/recruiting curve of regularly incorporating strings. So I haven't been able to draw upon these arrangements yet. I'm very excited to hear what he comes up with and to see what we can learn from this project!
Many people these days are hip to the www.kiva.org type opportunities to financially give globally. Susanna and I love Kiva and the concept of microlending. Of course I am also thrilled with the food revolution, community supported agriculture, urban farming--local environmental activism in all its forms (PLUG: I'm on the advisory committee of our CSA, Eighth Day Farm). However, I dream of a time when we could be even half as enthusiastic about selfless support of the arts, financial support not from the elite corporate charities and grants but from the rest of us. What would it mean if the middle class was involved in arts activism? What would have to shift in our values and priorities? What would shift in our culture? And for the Church, how would arts activism open possibilities for our Christian witness?
Check out Karl's Indie Go Go promotional page here. He's got some nice goodies for those who contribute.
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