I had this idea, while I was out hiking with my sister Jeanine, for a piece of music I wanted to compose as a gift for my mother on her birthday. I thought about it all afternoon, as Jeanine and I ground our way up the snowfield leading to Muir Pass, and by the time I got home I had pretty much worked out what I wanted to do.

One day at lunch, my coworker Josh H. mentioned that he sings in the Byrd Ensemble. A few emails back and forth with the choir’s director sufficed to arrange a recording session.

This is the result. It is a medley of my mother’s two favorite hymns: the Doxology, set to Old Hundredth, and “Crown him with many crowns”. I’ve reworked the harmonies, but the melodies came straight from the traditional tunes.