East Texas Musical Convention
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The East Texas Musical Convention, now usually called the East Texas Sacred Harp Convention, is an annual gathering of shape note singers. Songs are sung a cappella from the Sacred Harp tunebook. The Convention was organized in 1855, and is the oldest Sacred Harp convention in Texas, and the second oldest in the United States. The East Texas Convention was modeled after the older (now defunct) Southern Musical Convention established in 1845 by Benjamin Franklin White, the compiler of The Sacred Harp.
Throughout its history, the East Texas Musical Convention has convened annually in six East Texas counties: Gregg, Harrison, Panola, Rusk, Smith and Upshur. The Convention presently meets for two days in Henderson, Texas on the weekend of the second Sunday in August. The current "textbook" of the Convention is The Revised Sacred Harp (2000 Edition), first revised by W. M. Cooper and others in 1902.
References
- The Chattahoochee Musical Convention: 1852-2002, Kiri Miller, editor
- The Musical Million and Fireside Friend, periodical, Dayton, VA; Aldine S. Kieffer, editor; Volume XI (1880), page 135
- The Sacred Harp: A Tradition and Its Music, by Buell E. Cobb
- White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands, by George Pullen Jackson
External link
- East Texas Convention (http://fasola.org/minutes/2003/?text=ALL&line=142) - 2003 online minutes