Celebrating Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month #13

"Sound a Mystic Bamboo Song" (BAMBOO SONG), words by Bill Wallace, music by I-to-Loh, Upper Room Worshipbook, no. 171.

As is the case with much indigenous music, including that of the Orient, this song uses the pentatonic scale and harmonies. The lyrics see and speak of Christ as present in the lives, struggles, hardships of people in everyday situations, especially those who are sick, poor and struggling. It concludes with a prayer that God will heal, renew and restore the earth and its creatures and all life.

Composer I-to Loh (b.1936) is a hymnologist, ethnomusicologist, composer, editor, and professor, who has specialized in church music of Taiwan and other Asian countries. He has taught at the Tainan Theological College in Taiwan, directed church, and collegiate choirs, and published over fifty anthems and hymns. He contributed six hymns, settings and transcriptions to The United Methodist Hymnal (1989).

Source: Carlton Young, Companion to The United Methodist Hymnal,, Abingdon Press, 1993