Religion as a mirror of being human – redefining church music

I’m doing artistic research studying the humanity behind religous language and observing the relation between religious service and lived life. I’m interested in widening the definition of church music. Can it also be non-devotional? In other words, is there church music only in the church or can there be church music also about the church?

Based on my research I’ll compose new church music – or however people want to name it. I write mainly choir music but I want to test also the musical borders of church music and compose for example acousmatic music and mixed music for choir/singer and tape.

I want to encourage people to both think why we do as we have always done and see the vibrant contents we sometimes forget behind the formalities.

Leena Julin is a doctoral student in the Artistic Study Programme at the DocMus Doctoral School.

Keywords: Church music, religious language, christian tradition, philosophy of religion,humanity