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Over the course of 7 years, Atlanta filmmakers/ Sacred Harp singers,

Matt & Erica Hinton, created Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp,

the first feature documentary to explore the history, music, and traditions

of Sacred Harp singing, the oldest distinctively American music. This

haunting music has survived over 200 years tucked away from sight in

the rural deep South, where Sacred Harp singers begin each song by

intoning syllables which are represented by each "shapenote" in their

hymnal: fa, sol, la, and mi (triangle, oval, square and diamond). To the

casual observer, it is some foreign, unintelligible language, but to these

Sacred Harp singers, it is the key that unlocks mysteries: songs of both

beauty and sorrow, of life and of death, songs that cause feet to stomp

and tears to flow, often at the same time. Awake, My Soul has aired

nationwide on PBS and has been featured in TIME, Paste Magazine, NY

Times, Pitchfork, SPIN and on NPR.