Composer Kamala Sankaram is set to premiere the “Secular Sacred Harp” on May 12 and 26, 2022 at Merkin Hall in New York City.

The performance will feature new songs and an opportunity for live audiences to participate; participants will all join Sankaram in a circle on stage with a score and pitch detection image projected on a screen.

“There’s something about making music together that is really important for feeling connected and feeling a sense of community,” Sankaram said in an official press statement. “One thing that’s unfortunate about the way that we engage with music now is that most of us don’t make it ourselves. Instead, we listen either passively or actively, but we are not singing, we don’t play things together, and that’s what people used to do for most of our history. I wanted to find a way to let anyone come in off the street with no musical training, no musical knowledge, and make a piece of music together.”

The ”Sing-In” app will be made available to the public free of charge this summer.

“I hope people get together and sing and use Pitch Finder to make music. If you have a group of friends over, instead of playing a video game, you’re having fun and making music together,” Sankaram concluded.