With joy I offer these beloved hymns, melodies that reached my young ears as I grew up in Texas, with church on Sunday and lots of singing – a steady pulse in the rhythm of my childhood life and community. They have never left the treasured place in my heart where they reside.
Living rurally, I often feel the beauty of the land itself, in its myriad affirmations, as an unbounded context for praise, for inspiration, and for gratitude . . . delighting in “the prayers that are made out of grass.”* Perhaps the most expansive experience of church can be found in a golden field under an all-embracing sky.
In this ever-widening circle, these hymns belong to all of us, and we to them. They call us to abide — to notice more fully the fount of blessing, to tune our hearts toward grace, to see the morning light as an invitation to awaken — and to know, in the words of 14th century mystic Julian of Norwich, that “all shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Above the Field is dedicated to my mom and dad, Ella and Tejan Cunningham.
Musicians:
Dana Cunningham - piano
Max Dyer - cello
Mike Sakash - alto saxophone
Production Credits:
Produced by Dana Cunningham
All piano arrangements composed by Dana Cunningham
except for The Lord Bless You and Keep You – music by Peter C. Lutkin
Recorded, mixed, and mastered
by Gerry Putnam at CedarHouse Sound and Mastering, North Sutton, NH
Art Direction and Design:
Bruce Kennett
Album artwork:
Smiley Meadow, Oil on canvas 33”x38”
by Tallie Moore
Piano: Steinway B
All rights reserved. Made in USA
©2016 Dana Cunningham
Fountain Creek Music
*line from the poem Mindful by Mary Oliver
Song List:
1. Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing 4:45
2. Holy, Holy, Holy 2:53
3. Praise to the Lord, the Almighty/What Wondrous Love is This 4:32
4. Abide with Me 4:09
5. Nearer, My God, to Thee 3:13
6. Love Divine, All Loves Excelling 3:30
7. The Lord Bless You and Keep You 1:54
8. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring 5:03
9. I Need Thee Every Hour 3:30
10. When Morning Gilds the Skies 4:30
11. Come Down, O Love Divine 2:12
12. Blessed Assurance 4:09
13. It is Well 5:18
14. Doxology 1:21
TT 50:53
