Church music landscape rearranged as big publishers close

By SI Filings
Jan 04 2022
Church Music
Worship Music

"When it announced last month it was shutting down, Brentwood Benson became the latest in a line of major church music publishers closing their doors. Last year saw the bankruptcy of Lorenz Corp., which had purchased choral giant Word Music in 2017. Then a few months ago, Lifeway released its last box of new choral offerings for churches." - BPNews

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dgszweda's picture

dgszweda -

This is sad.  I have a soft spot for a good church choir.  Unfortunately, they seem to be dying.  

dcbii's picture

EditorModerator
dcbii -

dgszweda wrote:

This is sad.  I have a soft spot for a good church choir.  Unfortunately, they seem to be dying.  

Agreed.  It seems that philosophically, some of the newer music directors are shunning choirs and any special music for a simple, "all congregational" model, even moving away from hymnals or printed music (with written musical parts) to overheads with just the words, making it difficult for those in the congregation to sing something other than the melody, and I also find that sad.  The supposedly temporary disbanding of choirs and reduction of special music during Covid has only hastened that trend.

Dave Barnhart