Forum on Music and Christian Scholarship

Hello,

I'm involved in running a Veritas Forum at Oxford next year (www.veritas.org). Briefly put, this event aims to demonstrate the relevance of Christianity to academic life. I was wondering if anyone could offer any ideas, suggestions or advice.

I'm involved with organising a music event as part of this with the suggested theme of 'Giving Voice to the suffering'. The current idea is to make it part-concert., part talk/discussion.

Firstly, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for music. cUrrent thoughts of mine include themes such as settings of the lament psalms, passion settings or something on the use of sacred texts in a response secular world events (along the lines of Britten's War Requiem or Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw, but I'd need to find something on a smaller scale).

Secondly, I'm finding it hard to envisage what kinds of questions this events can ask which would bring the theological and musicological elements together in a meaningful way. If anyone has any thoughts or can suggest any books they've found useful when considering such issues I'd be very interested to hear.

Thank you so much for your help.
Katherine