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In 2005, I had the privilege of befriending a family from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. They hired me to produce a promotional video for their business. I spent about eight days with them, traveling around the island, learning its history, embracing the culture, meeting the people, soaking in the beauty of the woods, the lakes, the ocean shores and cliffs, coming face-to-face with the vast population of moose and eagles, shooting video along the way. 

Every morning I spent two hours on their sparsely wooded hill in silence, in song, in meditation, in dance before God, our Creator, in joy, in reverence, in awe, over-looking the vast saltwater lake called Bras d'Or (Arms of Gold). It was a profound emotional and spiritual experience. 

In the midst of perfection came deep sorrow. Their small community was hit with two blows: their friends' baby died at birth and teenagers across the vast mountainous island were under the grip of addictions that were rendering them hopeless, incapacitated, or dead. Grief overwhelmed me. 

I felt compelled to study Cape Breton Island, it's people, it's history, to write a song that reminded them, called them back to their identity, their purpose, their gift to this world. Calling them back to Joy, to delight in the presence of God, our Maker. Out of this experience was birthed this song "Heaven's Door."

My prayer is that you, too, will embrace this unction for your own life as you listen to and read the words to this song. 

In Nomine Jesu.
Soli Deo Gloria.

Kevyn Bashore

The Susquehanna Folk Music Society Song of the Year - Runner Up - 2007

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The Susquehanna Folk Music Society Song of the Year - 2008

For several years leading up to the end of 2007 I was compelled to run on mountains in the worst rain storms, hurricane-force winds, under lightninged skies, pelting rains. Not alone. With God. It was my meditation. A season like no other. 

It was during such as time as this that I was compelled to write this ode to my beautiful home state of Pennsylvania. This song is my love song for Pennsylvania. And for God.

A prayer. 

May it honor both. And call forth my homeland and peoples to their true identity and purpose.

In Nomine Jesu.
Soli Deo Gloria.

Kevyn Bashore

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The year was 1995. I just spent almost two years living in a log home in the backwoods of Pennsylvania working with Mennonite carpenters and former Amish, building an award-winning community.  This wasn't my first choice. I went to Elverson, Pennsylvania, begrudgingly after winning seventeen international awards for my graduate school film "Cry of the Cricket," as the writer, director, composer (and co-producer/co-editor: uncredited). 

Truth be told, I had a physical and spiritual crash at the end of grad school because I foolishly dared myself to go beyond human limitations to see how far I could push myself before I broke. I found out.  God's solution? While I decided to pack my bags and awards and head to Los Angeles to cash in on my current "fame," the Holy Spirit spoke these words: "Hollywood you die. Elverson you live." Yes, it was that clear. God spoke. 

We all say we want to hear the Voice of God -- until we do. And if God says something we don't want to hear, what then? I attempted to block out His voice, but to my peril. I finally gave in and went to Elverson.

There's much to this story that I"ll share someday in my autobiography or memoir, but suffice it here to say: I began to flourish when I embraced it as a season that God called me to for the purposes beyond my understanding. After six months of weeping and anger, I finally began to embrace the process. I worked hard labor as a carpenter's assistant for nine hours a day. I initiated a C. S. Lewis and spiritual development book club with my housemates and friends. I hosted elaborate dinner parties to bless friends and those who were my support team during my time there. I began to teach the local country children a writing class. And I embraced early morning (4:00AM prayer, reading, meditation, and writing). 

At the end of this time I felt compelled to join a volunteer team to help renovate the C. S. Lewis home near Oxford, England. I had no idea what awaited me there: the most dramatic supernatural battle of my life (see poster here). It was during my work and stay at the famous author's home that I learned that Sparrow Records was planning to record an album dedicated to C. S. Lewis, so I wrote and recorded my own hymn dedicated to Lewis ("Legacy of Truth"). Sparrow Records and their producers had no desire to ever listen to or produce my song, so this draft recording became the only official recording.

Four years later, in 1998, the Sparrow Records deal had fallen through and no one had any songs to perform for the C. S. Lewis Centennial Celebration in Oxford and Cambridge, England. Consequently, I was flown to England to perform this song.

I am reviving this song once again in hopes of seeing a larger audience have an opportunity to enjoy it.  I've also waited 30 years to tell my story of my battle for the C. S. Lewis estate and I believe the time has finally come for me to share it. Stay tuned and let me know if reading or seeing a supernatural thriller about my experiences at the C. S. Lewis estate is something you would support. 

Meanwhile, "Legacy of Truth" has at least nine references to various works of C. S. Lewis. See if you can spot them.

In Nomine Jesu.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Kevyn Bashore

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Soundtracks composed and performed by Kevyn Bashore for:

CRY OF THE CRICKET (various selections)
Music written for the film by Kevyn Bashore
(writer, director, composer, co-producer)

FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE (Overture)
Play: written, directed, produced by Gillette Elvgren
Music by Kevyn Bashore

Various video productions:
Music by Kevyn Bashore
"Caernarvon"
"Fields of Plenty"

CRY OF THE CRICKET was a dramatic narrative film that I wrote, directed, and composed the soundtrack for, as a fulfillment for my graduate degree at Regent University, along with a stunning team of fellow creatives co-lead by Mark Bork (producer), Jean-Guy Bureau (Director of Photography), and Terry Lindvall (Executive Producer). The 33-minute film went on to win seventeen awards world-wide, including a CINE Award, NRB (National Religious Broadcasters) Student Film Award, Regional Academy Award, and a Silver Student Emmy Award. 

FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE is an award-winning play written, directed, and produced by the creative marvel Gillette Elvgren. He hired me to write and record musical interludes for this dramatic tragedy that premiered on Regent University's stage in 1991. I also had the honor of being one of four lead actors to perform in the premiere production.
 

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My ancestors, the French Huguenots, were killed during the counter Reformation in France, led by the Jesuits. 

I always wondered why my father, a dedicated Christian and honorable man, was so suspicious of Catholics. I finally realized that he carried a spiritual fear and judgement against them that was incited against his family lineage hundreds of years earlier. 

In 1995 I felt compelled to break that judgement and curse by juxtaposing the words of my favorite poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins (a Jesuit priest), with music I composed, bringing together our two worlds, Catholic and Protestant, as an act of forgiveness on behalf of my family towards those who massacred our ancestors: a release to the perpetrators and a healing balm for my family and the generations to come. 

Thus was birthed this song: "Nondum," which means "not yet." The words of song (please read the lyrics) are bathed in the pain of waiting on God and in His silence. And yet, there is hope. 

The subtitle, as you will hear, could be the refrain: "Speak! Whisper To My Watching Heart." I shortened it to the original title of the poem, Nondum, because thereis something beautifully mysterious about the cryptic word  that means "not yet."

I realize this song is unrefined as a draft recording produced long ago, and it is written in powerful poetic language hard to understand, but I believe there is a beauty to be mined in the challenge of reading and hearing these words. Please engage the challenge of the song. The words should be listed where the song is offered on Apple Music, etc.. 

May you be blessed by the freedom this song was intended to release.

In Nomine Jesu.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Kevyn Bashore

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