Gathering Another Time

An e-mail dropped yesterday announcing GIA’s newest iteration of the Gather hymnal. My cursory glance found much the same, minus two disgraced composers. GIA’s acquisition of WLP will be something of a boon (eighty-plus items) for their stable of composers. That includes the underrated Steven Warner and Ed Bolduc. There are reworking of old psalms and inclusion of the new in GIA’s two Grail psalm collections, Lyric Psalter and Cry Out With Joy. 

Prices are up–in the neighborhood of 50% over the last Gather edition for every edition–choir, pew, and all the instruments. Numbered items approach 1100, making it one of the “biggest” collections of liturgical music bound between two hard covers and backed by a spine. 

We’ll have five months before availability. I wonder how well it will sell. Pandemic has put a lot of music on screens and in disposable worship aids. A good chunk of my week goes into this production. I might ask myself: in the long-term, isn’t it more cost effective to swallow the $20 per book price tag and go with what the publisher feeds me in the 2020s? 

A social media friend commented on the green to gray binding. Maybe that suggests a rebranding of sorts. It’s not the first gray hymnal from this publisher. If I’m still blogging in the Fall, maybe I’ll take a look at it for y’all.