TAKT

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TAKT is a group of writers and composers who create new songs for Christian churches. They started in 1947, and the music they promoted later became known as Neues Geistliches Lied (NGL). The group’s name stands for TextAutor/innen- und Komponist/innen-Tagung (Convention of text authors and composers), a title they adopted in 1997.

A monthly song publication, Unser Monatslied ("Our Song of the Month"), began in 1946, started by Hermann Stern to encourage new church music across denominations. In 1947 a Catholic group, Werkgemeinschaft Lied und Musik, was founded and held annual conventions. In 1950 a Protestant group, AGM (Arbeitsgemeinschaft für evangelische Jugendmusik), was formed.

From 1971, ecumenical annual meetings brought members from both groups together, led by AGM president Joachim Schwarz and Johannes Aengenvoort. Between 1979 and 1989 the meetings were held at Knivsberg in Denmark, allowing East Germans to participate. After German reunification, the meetings took place in Germany, organized by the TAKT group.

Many TAKT songs have been included in hymnals, such as the Catholic Gotteslob and the Protestant Evangelisches Gesangbuch. New songs were often first tried out at church events like Kirchentag and Katholikentag. For Kirchentag in Cologne in 2007, TAKT published a collection called "Singen, um gehört zu werden" ("Sing, to be heard"), containing 119 songs from three decades.

Many TAKT members contributed well-known songs to the Neues Geistliches Lied repertoire.