A Burnaby violinist is reaching out to bring hymns into homes on Easter Sunday morning.
Rosemary Siemens is offering a Sunday hymn sing-along at 10 a.m. on Sunday, April 12.
“A lot of churches are closed, so it gives people a chance to hear music they love and hopefully sing from the comfort of their homes,” Siemens wrote in an email.
She’ll be offering up a variety of hymns, by request, on piano, and viewers can sing along from wherever they are watching from.
Siemens’ Easter Sunday offering is an extension of her ongoing Sunday Hymn Serenade on YouTube, where she releases a new video of herself performing a hymn every Sunday morning, followed by an inspirational story. Through taking hymn requests and sharing those stories, Siemens has gained more than 10,900 subscribers in her first six months of the series, with more than 2.7 million views on her hymn videos.
“When I launched my Sunday Hymn Serenade YouTube series, it was specifically to achieve my goal of bringing hymns back into churches, but I never imagined it would turn into a global music ministry,” she said in a press release.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Siemens said, she’s been hearing from people around the world thanking her for sharing a message of faith and hope in troubling times.
With the huge response to her Sunday Hymn Serenade, Siemens has also launched a new Worship Wednesday series on her YouTube channel. Every Wednesday edition features her performing a song, with an inspiring and timely story to follow.
The Sunday Hymn Serenade and Worship Wednesday both happen at 7 a.m. Pacific (10 a.m. Eastern).
The Easter Sunday sing-along event is at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. Eastern).
You can check out more at Siemens’ YouTube channel or follow Siemens on Facebook.
Siemens recently took home two awards in a ceremony presented online by Gospel Music Awards Canada on March 21: one for Children’s Song of the Year, for You and Me, a song she wrote with Jaylene Johnson for her son, Theodore; and the other for Instrumental Song of the Year, for a duet rendition of Lauren Daigle’s hit You Say. That was recorded by Siemens and her husband, saxophonist Eli Bennett, who perform together as SaxAndViolin.
Siemens and Bennett had originally been scheduled to perform at the Gospel Music Awards Canada ceremony in Langley. Instead, the whole family accepted the awards during the online awards ceremony that brought together Christian artists from across Canada in virtual format.
“It was so special to not only win the Gospel Music Award for Children’s Song of the Year for the song I wrote for Theodore, but to accept the award together with him and my husband Eli was just a blessing,” Siemens said in a press release. “Theodore was on my lap while we were giving the acceptance speech, and because this was his song, having him be a part of it just meant so much to us.”
Siemens and Bennett were previously featured in the NOW in December 2019 – see more about them here.
