Christopher deSilva

I will be at the APMN conference in Perth in early October and one of the workshops I am going to is Chris deSilva showcasing his compositions.

His bio is as follows:

Chris deSilva is Music Consultant to the Perth Archdiocesan Centre for Liturgy; a composer and choir director, parish musician and parish RCIA process coordinator.  He has run workshops for parish musicians in the Archdiocese of Perth for about two decades.  He is the co-author (with Dr Angela McCarthy) of courses for Cantors and Psalmists.  He publishes his original compositions on his website, www.laudamus.com.au.

This means he is obviously not the other Chris deSilva from the US who also writes hymns, some of which I have blogged on this site.

Just because he is well known in Perth doesn’t mean I’ve heard of him 3600km away on the east coast (Australia is huge by the way) but if you go to his website he has several songs posted with sheet music etc, that you can access for nothing within the stated parameters on his site:

The music that is downloaded from this web site may be reproduced free of charge for use by music ministers in parishes, schools and religious communities. It may not be offered for sale or reproduced for commercial purposes. The lyrics may be reproduced for use by the assembly under the Annual Restricted Copy Licence of Word of Life International. The sound recordings may not be reproduced for commercial purposes.

My method of getting to know songs is to make backings and sing along. There are basic piano + voice sound files on his site but you might be able to sing along with my backings as well to learn them.

I have looked at several already and am impressed.  For the most part they are singable, assembly friendly and with liturgical uses. I am hoping he has others as well that he will reveal at his workshop, but there are plenty to go on with for now.

As a break from OCP songs I will put up backings for his songs over the next couple of weeks leading up to the conference, so see what you think.

update 24/9/2017

Chris has been in touch about his copyright situation:

I am not covered under OneLicense. I have decided that since Word of Life is no longer in operation, I will not seek to collect royalties for the use of my songs. The copyright statement in future will be something like:

“This music was downloaded from the Lauda Music website. It may be reproduced free of charge for use by music ministers in parishes, schools and religious communities. The melody line and lyrics may also be reproduced for use by the assembly free of charge. It may not be offered for sale or reproduced for commercial purposes.”

The attribution should be the same as the line at the bottom of the first page of each song.