BCC’s new cd

One of the things I have missed most this year in Africa is singing with a choir. Around Pesach time, while brainstorming about different fundraising projects for the library, I thought about utilizing the voices and music at BCC. Morning glory at BCC is a truly remarkable experience. At 8:00 every morning, the staff pours out their heart to God with almost a half-hour of singing, bible study, and prayer. The songs are mostly local; they are in Lugisu, Luganda, English, and Swahili. After singing, someone from the staff “shares” from the Bible and then prays about the coming day. During my first three months in Uganda, while working at BCC, I started every morning by sitting in morning glory. Even though I didn’t sing the words to the songs, I really enjoyed learning each tune and allowing the exciting atmosphere of joyous prayer to sink in as I took my own time for self-reflection.

After capturing some of the morning glory music on the library video, Maital and I kept humming the tunes all the time. I wanted to share this music with people all over the world who could also enjoy the morning glory music for its great melodies, its motivating call to prayer, or its unique African beat. Maital and I decided that BCC should make a CD.

After talking with some of the BCC staff, Maital and I set to work to prepare a BCC choir for recording. Each day for three weeks, I left Nabugoye Hill after lunch to direct a group of staff while, Adam, the Joshua Primary School music teacher, worked with the children’s choir. At first, I just listened to a variety of songs from morning glory and together we compiled a list of songs that we thought were best for the group. After a few days, we were able to focus on a list of songs and began working on voice parts.

One of the most amazing things that I have observed about Ugandans is their natural ability to harmonize. It was pretty easy to work out harmonies for four voice parts since most of the staff already knew what voice parts they felt most comfortable singing and could easily pick out the harmonies appropriate to those voice parts. Before long, we picked soloists and finalized harmonies. Adam helped me in the last week before recording by adding some fun parts to the songs that would give them some more character.

Thanks to Maital’s administrative skills and a lot of help from some key people at BCC, we were able to schedule recording and organize for all the children and staff to spend two full days recording in Mbale town. The owner of the recording studio had warned me that the studio was small but I was still a little shocked when I was led into a room about 10×6 feet, with about 4 ft. of room to record. (I am not sure that you can even imagine how hot this insulated/sound proof room with no windows and a closed door became in the middle of the day, especially when we had to shut the fan during recording.) Somehow, sixteen children managed to squeeze into this small studio behind the large microphone and to sing beautifully. For all of the children and many of the staff, it was the first time they heard themselves sing. You should have seen the look on the children’s faces (and heard their giggles) each time we played back the song for them to hear. The producer is extremely talented and has brought a real professionalism to the recording. Everyone who participated is anxiously awaiting a final product!

In only two days, the children and staff finished recording the 8 songs and medleys that we had practiced for weeks. I will be working with the producer on final edits this week and then the cd will be finished! Everyone at BCC has been asking Maital and me about the cd and I am so excited for them to hear how wonderful it is.

Right now we are calling the cd “Bushiglory,” which is a contraction of Morning Glory at Bushikori but are open to other suggestions. We are very interested in publishing the cd in America in order to raise funds for the library. If anyone has any experience with publishing cds or graphic design, please don’t hesitate to email us.