The Festival of Faith and Music will take place Thursday through Saturday, April 7-9, at Calvin College. Now in its fifth year, the festival is designed to explore the conversation between faith and the art of music, creating community among musicians, critics, theologians and listeners from a variety of backgrounds.
"It is a way to celebrate musicians who are people of faith working in the public square," said director of student activities Ken Heffner. "We also are interested in hearing from those musicians who are doing good truth-telling, honorable work, but who would not say that they were people of faith."
It is that ability to engage both Christian and non-Christian musicians in a dialogue around the context of faith and popular music that Heffner says makes this gathering unlike any other in the music world.
FFM includes three nights of live performances, workshops and keynote speakers.
Musician Matisyahu will kick off the festival with an opening night concert. Matisyahu is known for blending traditional Jewish themes with Reggae, rock and hip hop beat-boxing sounds. His singles "King Without a Crown" and "One Day" were Top 40 hits in the United States. Shara Worden, lead singer and songwriter for My Brightest Diamond, will open for Matisyahu.
The Civil Wars, featuring songwriter Joy Williams and John Paul White will be performing on Friday night. And Jon Foreman, the lead singer, guitarist, songwriter and co-founder of Switchfoot will also perform at festival.
The keynote speakers include Gregory Wolfe, the founder and editor of "Image," one of America's leading literary quarterlies; Shara Worden, the founder of the band My Brightest Diamond, and Luke Powery, the Perry and Georgia Engle assistant professor of homiletics at Princeton Theological Seminary.
The festival also welcomes Brett McCracken, author of the recently released "Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide"; John Van Sloten, a Canadian pastor and author of "The Day Metallica Came to Church: Seeing the Everywhere God in Everything" (2010); and Just Pete, a podcaster and deejay who started "The Bored-Again Christian" podcast, which is billed as "Christian music for people who are tired of Christian music."
For a full list of festival speakers and performers or to register, visit www.calvin.edu/go/ffm
For more info on FFM, contact Ken Heffner at 616-526-6064.
REQUESTS FOR MEDIA PASSES should be made to media relations manager Matt Kucinski at msk23@calvin.edu
Note: FFM has added a pre-conference specifically for youth leaders in 2011. The pre-conference (co-sponsored by the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship and the Congregational Ministry Studies department) will feature Canadian pastor John Van Sloten leading discussion about ways to help youth discern how music can support and nurture their faith.
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Received on Mon Feb 14 12:09:44 2011
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