A dozen young theologians and composers will premiere six new compositions of Christian music at the TheoArtistry Festival at the University of St Andrews next month, in a project mentored by the Scottish composer Sir James MacMillan.
The sacred music, 'shining a light on the creative power of Christianity',will be on themes of divine encounter in The Bible: God speaking to Adam and Eve, to Jacob, to Moses, to Samuel, to Elijah, and through Solomon.
The project is led by the University's Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts (ITIA) which is interested in the practice and performance of Christian art, according to the Herald.
Sir James said: 'It will be interesting to see if the next generation of composers will engage with theology, Christianity or the general search for the sacred.
'There has been a significant development in this kind of intellectual, academic and creative activity in the last 20 years or so. In the world of theology there is an understanding that the arts open a unique window onto the divine.
'Traditions are rivers which run through history irrigating human experience at any given point and if you put a dam in that river, you desiccate life, you stop irrigation, and that was one of the negative fallouts, the negative consequences of revolutionary modernism, that trend to stop the influence of the past.
'Let's take the dam away, and let tradition flow.
'That river is an onward going thing, it has a past, but it also has a future and a present, and it can indeed irrigate human experience at any given time of history.'
Dr George Corbett of the School of Divinity at the University of St Andrews said: 'We believe that by encouraging artists to re-engage with Christianity – whether in a reverent, irreverent, playful, or provocative way – we can help to inspire creative and original new art.
'What happens, then, in this artistic encounter with Christianity? I like the scriptural image of water and wine: there is a sense, I think, in which music can be transformed by its encounter with Christianity and come not to serve theology, but to be theology or, more exactly, theoartistry, insofar as it may reveal God in a new way through artistry.'
More than 100 young composers applied for one of six places to work with six St Andrews theologians, the Herald reported.
