While the “boast” is one of the most recognizable topics in rap lyrics, Shai Linne (commonly known as Shai)—a Christian pastor and rapper—aims to leverage his hip-hop upbringing to exalt Christ alone through teaching the doctrines of Reformed Theology (Linne 2021). As part of a small but vibrant “Reformed hip-hop” circle, Shai is peerless in his theological depth and didactic intensity. His singular focus on teaching Calvinism not only challenges Zanfagna (2015 and 2017)’s cultural analysis of “holy hip-hop,” but it also transcends Krim (2000)’s system of rap genres and topics.

In this paper, I explore the previously uncharted territory of flow in Reformed hip-hop, focusing on Shai’s selected output as representatives. Performing the function of what Vanhoozer and Stachan (2020) call “Pastor as Public Theologian,” Shai negotiates three overlapping spaces: artistic, evangelistic, and sermonic. With a few notable exceptions, Shai’s songs are generally more “old-school” than “new-school” (Krims 2000, Adams 2009). This is not surprising, given that the purpose of Shai the preacher is to teach theology and promote doxology with utmost clarity. I argue, however, that this overall simplicity conceals elements of new-school complexity that enrich his flow and engender intricate text-music connections.

Analysis of “Solus Christus,” “Memoirs,” and “Turn it Off”—chosen from his first and last albums—shows Shai’s resourceful use of flow to communicate textual and theological meanings. In “Solus Christus,” while regularity and density of multi-syllable rhymes reflect the profundity of Reformed theology, flow change from the hook to the verses delineates the different personas of the fervent evangelist and the authoritative theologian. In the autobiographical “Memoirs,” Shai juxtaposes “old-school” and “new-school” approaches to contrast between his affection for his mother and estrangement from his father. From his last album Still Jesus, “Turn it Off” employs a gradual “crescendo” in rhyme length, density, and metrical malleability in the last verse, bringing the evangelist’s plea to an artistic and theological climax in his impassioned boast about Christ. For Shai, flow is a tool not for braggadocio, but for communicating truth, beauty, and hope.

Although concerns for religious ritual, just governance, and musical harmony form a unifying whole within traditional Chinese thought, sustained scholarly inquiry into the possible import of these themes for surviving music repertory remains a critical need. One promising place of entry is found in the work of late sinologist, Rao Zongyi, for whom the piece “Shenren Chang” (神人畅) typifies a genre that celebrates the link between transcendental forces and terrestrial political concerns (2022). His claim is confirmed by Song Dynasty scholar Zhu Changwen (1041-1098), whose definitive Qin History also cites “Shenren Chang” while collating the associated origin myths. That is, legendary founding emperors of China encountered divine apparitions while playing qin and subsequently received guidance on benevolent governance for ecological and societal harmony. Gathering the scant scholarly literature, this presentation first analyzes the extant version of “Shenren Chang” for its sacred programmatic evocations.

Verbal descriptions of the piece’s sacred valences by its modern revivalist, qin master Ding Chengyun, are first consulted. His interpretations, usually with citation of historical music theory, are substantiated through a subsequent study of texts such as the ancient timbral “Theory of Three Sounds” (Sansheng Lun). My informed analysis sees an initial ethereal descent given in a heptatonic pitch collection played in harmonics resembling “heaven.” A pentatonic section follows with open-string and slide techniques that accord respectively with “earth” and “human” categories. The gathering momentum of the two sections ultimately converge into a climatic melodic repetition across timbral contrasts, which illustrate the kind of harmonious interaction between divinity and humanity narrated in the myth.

Moreover, the surprising verbatim echo of various “Shenren Chang” motifs in the only other extant “Chang” piece, “Nanfeng Chang” (南风畅), strongly suggests a compositional consciousness of genre, which is further corroborated by the two pieces’ proximate imperial myths. This striking correspondence encourages a concluding exploration into possibly concentric musical and narrative relationships shared by these two pieces that then ripple into other related thematic pieces across neighboring manuscripts and time periods. The result points toward the retrieval of a neglected sacred-political genre that reshapes our understanding of thematic expression in ancient Chinese music.

Ashkenazic Jewish liturgical music of the mid-20^th-century United States sounded tensions of the cultural encounter between prosperous, earlier Western European immigrants and impoverished, recent Eastern European immigrants. It also sounded the tensions of acculturation (or, assimilationism) between both groups and the surrounding Christian hegemony. Western European Jews had brought 19^th-century reformations with them, including congregational hymnody, organ music, and Church-originated major/minor tonality. Eastern European Jews included most members of the so-called “Golden Age of Cantors,” chazzans (cantors) who practiced the modal (rather than tonal), unmetered, unaccompanied liturgical recitative of pre-Emancipation Jewish worship. Chazzan David Kusevitsky (1911–1985), a Belarussian immigrant, embodied the encounter of these traditions. “L’eil Boruch” is an organ-accompanied recitative recorded in 1951. This presentation documents audible tensions between Kusevitsky’s cantorial tradition and the acculturation embodied in the accompaniment’s projection of the Western minor tonality and metric periodicity.

In two passages, the organ enacts a B♭m:PAC, but the voice avoids the determinative A♮, reserving that pitch for v°-I cadences in the F ahava raba mode. In two other passages, the organ’s metric regularity signals a shift towards more acculturated congregational singing, in contrast to the unaccompanied, heterophonic, individualistic texture of older and more Eastern European Jewish worship.

Kusevitsky’s performance is now a relic of a past era. Even the metered congregational singing suggested in passages of “L’eil Boruch” has been replaced by the sounds of the American and Israeli folk revivals of the 1960s in “mainline” North American Jewish congregations. In Kusevitsky and other chazzans of his generation, we hear the acculturation of mid-century American Jews as it happened in their places of worship. By documenting this process, I hope to bring the sounds of the mid-century synagogue into the abounding theories of Jewish acculturation and assimilation in the United States.

All of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s music shares a few key threads, despite being written over a six-decade period and in a myriad of styles, ranging from Polish sonorism to repetitive tonality. By viewing musical aspects that remained the same, as opposed to those that changed, much can be learned about a composer’s stylistic evolution. When filming a documentary about the Third Symphony, Górecki insisted on filming in Auschwitz, saying “my symphony is not about Auschwitz…But look around you. Feel the emptiness.” This paper introduces the term “micro-schemata,” applies it to the first theoretical corpus study of Górecki’s oeuvre, and musically illustrates Górecki’s “emptiness.” Micro-schemata are defined as stock musical concepts, distinct but flexible, the goal of which is to serve as a long-term reminder across a composer’s career, after Bob Snyder’s “frameworks for memory.” 90.3% of Górecki’s works with available scores—including all major works—utilize the micro-schemata outlined in this study; less than 10% do not. Each micro-schema can be viewed in a progression spanning the composer’s three main stylistic periods: the “geometric period”, romantic modality, and tonal sparsity. However, we can instead secure our viewpoint in the micro-schemata, considering them as an axle, and the style in which they are used as rotations about the axle. The micro-schemata remain constant while the context changes. The smallest aspects of the piece are suddenly the largest things occurring, and their surroundings take the role of the minuscule; we can “feel the emptiness” revolving about the axle.