Christmastime GospelFest

Allison Durham Speer will be joining me and the GospelFest Singers for our 4th Annual Christmastime GospelFest! The event will be Thursday, December 11th, at the Five Points Washington Caterpillar Performing Arts Center in Washington, IL. Tickets are available by calling 309.472.0027. They're $15 advance and $18 at the door, $7 students and group discounts are available.

Allison has a brand new Christmas CD, from which she'll be singing at the concert, along with songs from the GospelFest Singers' new Christmas CD, "An Old-Fashioned Christmas." This album is an EP, featuring 3 original songs from Scott Kramer and myself, as well as the southern gospel classic, "Beautiful Star of Bethlehem."

Elijah Conference

We just completed the first annual Elijah Conference, hosted by Allison Durham Speer Ministries. This fantastic event served to challenge artists to better serve the kingdom of God by becoming effective communicators of the gospel. From artist/pastor relations, sharing deep spiritual truths in a concert and simply loving on people, all those in attendance--students and faculty--were challenged and sharpened through lecture, discussion and practical "lab" experiences.

Many of the students were also former students from the Stamps-Baxter School of Music, but there were several new faces. Brian & Allison Speer led a staff including Mike Allen, Wess & Susan Adams and myself along with many industry professionals who spoke on a variety of topics including pastors' perspectives on booking artists (Johnny Minick), booking dates (Kathi Mathis), Nashville Number System (Jack Clark), Marketing (Les Butler), creating a non-profit ministry (Rebecca Irwin), and producing an independent record (Aaron Minick).

What Allison teaches at the Stamps-Baxter school we were able to delve into even further with more detail and purpose--creating meaningful and impactful segues/transitions, using humor to create a comfortable concert setting, the power of scripture in your programs, how to successfully market an artist. Just a fantastic weekend!

This conference should be required for all soloists and groups wishing their ministry will have a profound effect on the kingdom of God and I can't recommend it highly enough. I am blessed to have been a small part of this fantastic event.

www.elijahconference.com.

New Dad Speer Songbook available

After 3 years, my new songbook, "Heaven's Jubilee: the songs of G.T. "Dad" Speer and the Speer Family" is now available! It was released this past January and has been selling very well. Ben Speer said it was one of the fastest moving product he remembered since they recorded "Peace in the Valley." Gaither Music has also picked up this book and is carrying it in their catalogs. You can order through me by e-mailing me at degenmusic@gmail.com. They are $10 each ($12 for spiral binding).

The photos below were taken by Aaron Crisler for the Judy Nelon Group. This is Bill Gaither & Ben Speer holding and talking about the songbook at a Homecoming concert in Nashville earlier this year. Thanks for the photos Aaron!

This year's GospelFest will be June 14th at Grace Presbyterian Church in Peoria. We're excited to be joined by Reggie & Ladye Love Smith and Stephen Hill, all regulars on the Gaither Homecoming videos. This is our 10th annual GospelFest and we're very excited about it!

I returned from Nashville a couple weeks ago after attending and presenting at the "Farther Along Conference" hosted by MTSU's Center for Popular Music in Murfreesboro, TN. What a great time of discussion and learning about the varying facets of the singing convention world.