Community
18 July, 2025
Looking back on hymn history
THE Parish of Camperdown and Holy Apostles is inviting the community to enjoy an afternoon of hymns and music as the Anglican Diocese of Ballarat marks 150 years
The church traditionally has a gathering where many hymns are sung, but Reverend Matthew Jones said he wanted to do something to not only celebrate the diocese’s milestone but also include the wider community.
“What we’re doing with this one is we’re going to celebrate hymns and music from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries,” he said.
“There’ll be two warm-up hymns, and then we’ve chosen three composers – one from each century – and we’ll do a little bit of a talk about each composer.
“There’ll be three hymns we’ll sing from each composer, all of which will be well-known hymns.
“Demby McKenzie, who is a well-known local musician, will be doing some solo pieces.
“We finish with a grand finale hymn, which everyone will enjoy singing, before we have afternoon tea.”
The event will be held on Sunday, July 27 at the St Paul’s Anglican Church on Church Street, with doors open at 2.30pm.
Rev Jones said the event will also invite donations to Anglicare, with attendees able to make donations into bowls if they choose.
“The idea is also to support Anglicare, which is our social outreach arm, because they do a lot of work helping people with warm clothes and food in winter when people are really cold and financially struggling,” he said.
“People can make a donation when they come – we’ve got bowls there to put money in for Anglicare – and they can also bring dry good groceries such as rice and baked bean tins and we will pass that on to Anglicare.”
Rev Jones said he wanted to capture as many hymns as he could as part of the celebration, which led to the decision to select composers from the 1700s, 1800s and 1900s.
“In our church, a lot of the music we sing isn’t super contemporary – like 21st century music – we still have a rich tradition of using music from earlier centuries,” he said.
“Some of them are so well-known, and people love them.
“We thought, if we pick three from each century, it just gives a taste of music that has withstood the test of time over the last 300 years.
“We’re celebrating 150 years of our diocese – if we only pick music from the last 150 years, there’s a whole lot that came from the 1700s that would be excluded.
“It’s an opportunity to come together and have a jolly good sing – we’ll also have pipe organ, violin and piano accompaniment as well.”
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