28 July 2025

First Ever Music Conference
for the Diocese of Toliara
WOW!

Salama! This is Josh Langhoff (Music Director from St James the Less, Northfield) writing about the Fihaonam-be Mozika Diosesy Toliara, the first music conference for the Diocese of Toliara. This conference, and the culminating Sunday worship, took place at the Cathedral Complex on the outskirts of Toliara, on the west coast of Madagascar. It was a great success, and very little went according to plan!

In the months leading up to our trip, we had a series of online meetings with two conference leaders:

Alfred (pictured right), the president of the Diocesan Music and Culture Department and a choir director who records original songs.

Vice-president, Rev. Zafy, a priest and musician in Betioky District, who served as a translator, as well as a musician.

They had several goals:

• Music leaders from around the diocese would teach one another their original songs, sharing the different styles of their various tribes. Many travelled several hours (or even days) to do so.

• We'd start writing new songs together, developing Malagasy-penned liturgical music to replace the American and European tunes in the original Malagasy Episcopal hymnal. It soon became obvious that the diocese is already overflowing with Malagasy music and that simply sharing it could take up most of our time. (Note from Sue & Simon here: it was clear from listening to the music now used in services that great developments had taken in writing Malagasy music for the hymns in the hymnal since our last visit in 2018. There has been tremendous progress in making worship more culturally relevant to the Malagasy people. )

• Josh would teach everyone solfa notation, a form of music writing based on solfege syllables (do-re-mi etc.) Currently most church musicians pick up new songs by ear, and almost nobody uses the staff (or stave) notation western musicians take for granted.

DAY 1: WEDNESDAY
The conference participants convened this morning while our team was flying from Ambovombe on a nine-seater Mission Aviation Fellowship plane. Bishop Samy picked us up from Toliara Airport and drove us to our hotel. Then it was off to the conference to spend a few minutes introducing myself to everyone before starting teaching on Thursday. OR SO I THOUGHT FROM THE PLAN WE HAD MADE IN ADVANCE!

Instead, I was shown to the head table and invited to start leading. Eek! I had no solfa lessons with me and two Malagasy words at my disposal. What I did have were my tablet and a still, small voice telling me to go around the room and take a skills inventory. It turned out we had 28 participants, men and women, from 12 or so different parishes, 11 of whom were ready to share new songs. By overwhelming demand, their top request was to learn solfa. One musician, a seminarian and multi-instrumentalist named Anthony, served as my translator.

Josh, Anthony & Alfred

DAY 2: THURSDAY
After devotion and prayer, Alfred taught us all the upbeat conference theme song he'd written.

I thought I would have a leg up on everyone here since Alfred had sent me a recording two months earlier, but I wasn't prepared for the amazing Malagasy music learning process! Alfred sang a line or two and everyone repeated it. He walked us through all three verses, and then taught us the song's chorus. Every once in a while he'd pause and worry over a line we'd missed, emphasizing the missed notes until we got them right. Then we sang through the whole song, with the young cathedral musicians, brothers Sanda (keyboard) and Manda (drums), accompanying. By just the second time through the verse, the group had come up with four-part harmonies! Soon little vocal asides and soaring descants appeared. The group had felt their way through the song and fleshed out a full arrangement.

This process of learning the song and composing harmonies by ear took about half an hour.

Now it was my turn. We started by learning the seven solfege syllables — do re me fa so la ti — with their accompanying hand motions.

Then I wrote the chorus of Alfred's song on the white board, and we sang through it slowly, pitch by pitch, writing the first letter of each solfege syllable above its corresponding syllable of the lyrics.

The rest of Thursday and Friday stuck to this pattern: someone would teach a song, and then I'd teach a solfa lesson using a Malagasy hymn everyone already knew.

I don't know what I would've done without our previous week in Amboasary. During our visits to the rural churches, I'd recorded several hymn tunes that had really grabbed me, and because we'd sung them in a number of places, I was confident they would be familiar to those at the conference, and would therefore work as good teaching tools.

DAY 3: FRIDAY
At the end of Thursday's session we'd determined that seven more participants still had to share their songs. We'd split them up over the next two days... OR SO I THOUGHT.

After our devotion, Alfred gave an impromptu and somewhat impassioned talk. Anthony translated for me. Alfred thought we should no longer learn participants' songs, that the rest of the conference needed to focus on learning new music for Sunday's worship service.

I wasn't the only one surprised by the change in plans. Albert, a youth leader, songwriter, and dancer from Maroaloka, raised his hand and disagreed. He felt we should stick to the original plan. Others started chiming in. Nobody raised their voices, but when I proposed that Alfred and I meet privately with the seven remaining song-sharers during morning break, Anthony agreed: "That may help defuse the situation."

I started by apologizing for taking up so much time on Thursday. I acknowledged we had two worthy goals — learning songs from individual parishes, and learning diocese-approved songs for Sunday — and too little time. And then I asked whether anyone would humbly consider not sharing their own songs. As I'd expected, nearly everyone raised his hand. The two exceptions were Arsene, a university chaplain with a piece of liturgical music that fit neatly into Alfred's scheme, and Albert, the dissenter.

To everyone's delight, Albert's song was a total bop, a joyful call-and-response tune exhorting us to praise God with the sounds of guitar, drums, piano, kabosy, valiha, and a bunch of other things I didn't recognize. As we sang, Albert led us in some traditional hand-shaking high-stepping dance moves, and we all finished the song laughing. Alfred loved the song so much he had us perform it during his Saturday choir concert and Sunday's worship service — dancing included.

I thought we'd spend the afternoon learning more of the songs on Alfred's list. Wrong again — back to solfa!

For our final lesson, participants called out solfa syllables and rhythmic symbols to notate a popular hymn.

Malagasy hymns are more tricky rhythmically than western Anglican ones, making their notation more complex, so I was nervous about this exercise, but the younger musicians picked it up quickly. By the end of the day, I felt that anyone who'd find solfa useful had the tools to use it.

Teachers know the magic of seeing students' eyes when they're really getting whatever you're teaching. God granted me that gift during the conference. Malagasy musicians teaching songs in person clearly don't need it. But for those musicians, like Sanda and Manda, who might share music remotely across the diocese, solfa unlocks possibilities.

SATURDAY AND SUNDAY
Finally it was time to share some of what we'd accomplished at Alfred's choir concert on Saturday afternoon, and in Sunday morning worship in the Cathedral.