Jeremiah Ingalls Annual Singing

Colonial North America began with a song. The first book printed in British North America was the Bay Psalm Book of 1640. Its purpose was for community/ congregational singing. In the colonies, people worked, farmed, built houses, built lives, built communities...and sang.

1720 brought singing schools, singing masters, and eventually composers and compilers of tunebooks. One of those composers/ compilers, at the time of the founding of the United States and the state of Vermont, was Jeremiah Ingalls of Newbury. We celebrate our heritage with the joy of singing Ingalls songs from his tunebook, The Christian Harmony, newly reprinted. Singing will be at a Newbury Meeting House, of about Ingalls vintage, on Saturday, the 18th of July.

On the Sunday, the 19th, we will follow with singing (at the Creative Center @ Goddard in Plainfield, Vermont) from a songbook that owes its heritage to early American composers but extended beyond…