Shaker Hymns Reimagined: Blumberg’s Ambitious Ann Lee Soundtrack
Blumberg’s score for Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee reworks ten traditional Shaker hymns and adds original material, recorded with a large on-set choir to evoke glossolalia. The result is an ambitious, texture-forward soundtrack that blends Gregorian-inflected chant with Appalachian timbres, creating a dense, sometimes claustrophobic atmosphere. While moments of quiet, restrained orchestration land effectively, the score can overwhelm the film’s light and over-saturate some hymns with minor-key modernism, though it also yields striking reverie in places.