It has been over five years since BYU-Idaho's choirs have recorded music and made it into an album. Even the recent album release of “Songs for Sunday” a brainchild of BYU-Idaho’s Music Department faculty member Randall Kempton stewed in limbo for a few years after the pandemic shut-down in 2020. However, due to Kempton’s fervent yearning to complete the project, it has since been recorded into an album and recently released to digital music platforms.
In a BYU-Idaho Radio interview, Kempton said one of the reasons the “Songs for Sunday” project was created was to provide inspiring music to the public that could be accessed at any time on any given day.
“We wanted to do something that would represent the best of what we were singing, but also be something that would be uplifting to people to listen to on Sunday or really any day of the week,” Kempton said.
BYU-Idaho’s Men’s and Women’s chorus, Collegiate Singers, Concert Choir, Vocal Union, and Symphony Orchestra are featured on the “Songs for Sunday” project. Kempton said releasing digital music is different than producing a CD.
“The releasing process was actually a big learning curve for us because we don't have - one of the challenges is that we don’t have a record label at BYU Idaho. BYU has Tantera. Now it is BYU Records that represents all of their musical groups and faculty ensembles. We don’t have a BYU-Idaho record, so we created BYU-Idaho Records.”
Some of the tracks on the “Songs for Sunday” album include “Walk in Light,” “Be Still, My Soul” and “I Need Thee Every Hour.” You can download and listen to the album on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music, Pandora, YouTube Music and iHeart Music.