Never Enough Singing: Essays in Honor of Seth Kasten

This small volume is a labor of love on the part of current and past members of the ATLA choir, the rather ragtag group of sometime singers. Once a year we are cajoled and drilled during one and a half hours of rehearsal to learn and make musical one or two choral works which few may have ever sung.

It is Seth Kasten who has worked this magic year after year. I briefly met Seth at my first ATLA conference in Washington, DC in 1998. I was completely enchanted with the idea that a conference of theological librarians had a choir, and I wanted to join. At the time, the conference program included a hymn sing, a wonderful tradition whose passing is still mourned by many of us. Seth instructed me to attend the hymn sing and sit next to Jim Dunkly who would vet me and decide whether or not I had made the grade as an ATLA chorister. Fortunately I did! Like many singers, I have not been able to sing every year, but I have enjoyed every piece we have learned, and singing the 'Kontakion for the Dead' to honor those ATLA members who have died in the past year has been a particular honor.

Melody Layton McMahon
Editor
May 2011