Faith Morgan Zimmer is a choral composer, poet, singer, songwriter, illustrator, and pianist based in Minnesota. She has a diverse background in music, having studied both classical and jazz piano as well as voice, choral conducting, and music theory. Faith has childhood memories of sitting down at the piano after dinner and experimenting with musical hooks while transforming her thoughts into lyrics. In short, she cannot remember a time when she wasn’t creating and composing music.
Faith is rarely idle. As a Missouri State University student, she published three of her choral compositions while her band at the time, the Faith Morgan Band, also produced an album.
Says Faith:
I am passionate about writing songs I truly feel to the core of my being. Feelings I couldn’t explain without poetry and melody. I feel that is what I am called to do, to create moments so beautiful it’s like heaven meeting earth.
Faith graduated from Missouri State University in 2019 with a Bachelor of Music in Music Composition, and in 2021 with a graduate certificate in choral studies. While at Missouri State, she studied with Dr. John Wykoff, Dr. Cameron LaBarr, and Susan LaBarr. However, Faith’s most profound influence as a composer came from her studies with Alice Parker:
She showed me that I can rely on my ear and sense of melody. That knowledge helped me find freedom in my writing. It doesn’t have to be based on a theoretical math problem or calculation, but you can actually base it on beauty and simplicity.
In May 2019 Morgan earned her degree in music composition. Immediately following graduation, Morgan spent six months with Youth with a Mission (YWAM) in South Africa, splitting her time between Cape Town, India, and Namibia. It is notable that this was during the pandemic. While she served as a missionary, she learned about herself as well.
I was able to find my identity, not based on my talents or anything. I feel that I can perform and compose again in a much healthier and holistic state of mind.
Faith’s choral works are published through Walton Music and have been recorded by the Missouri State Chorale.
Faith also records music as a singer-songwriter and leader of her newest band called Adamant Faith. In addition to composing, Faith paints commissioned visual art, writes poetry, teaches voice and songwriting, and leads worship at her local church. Faith lives with her husband, Sam, in Springfield, Missouri.
Says Faith,
I might never have a five-year or 10-year plan, but I’ll simply go to the next thing I am called to do.
Faith’s arrangement of the American folk song “I Am in Love” begins with the soprano singing the open and somewhat stark melody, while soprano 2 sings a rhythmic augmentation of the phrase with a complementary melody. When the alto part appears, soprano 1 and 2 have joined in unison, so there are essentially two parts that expand again to three as the emotional tension grows and climaxes with the phrase “but love grows old”, and then decrescendos with the words “fades away.” The latter part of the song is sung in hushed undertones with the ending repeating “I am in love” as the music gradually fades.
This is the first of Faith’s arrangements that The Canticle Singers will have performed, but I have a feeling it won’t be the last.