There is always a story behind a song.

One Easter Sunday morning, renowned  Jamaican arranger and choir director Noel Dexter sat in the audience as the National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) singers raised the roof of the Little Theatre in St Andrew and dancers moved to his arrangement of Psalm 150 — O Praise Ye The Lord — and he smiled.

A few hours later, he was seated at the piano inside the chapel at The University of the West Indies, Mona campus, as the University Singers, a choir he founded decades ago, raised the same song as part of the programme for their annual Easter concert, This Joyful Eastertide.

Just before the performance, two members of the choir, Althea McKenzie and Andre Bernard, treated the audience with a mini interview with Dexter to share the story behind the song.

“It was just after independence and Rex Nettleford had formed the NDTC, and here at the university there was a lot of talk about nation-building. Nettleford was always insisting that we create something of our own. He felt that we needed to try to identify ourselves in many different ways and creating our own music was one means of self-expression. By the 1970s I was a teacher at Ardenne and I was preparing for a performance at the St Cecilia Festival at St Andrew Scots Kirk United Church in Kingston, organised by Lloyd Hall. I felt the programme needed something and was inspired to put music to one of the most joyful Psalms.”

As they say, the rest is history.

Dexter’s O Praise Ye The Lord has been performed on many a stage both locally and overseas.

“I was pleased last year to receive a programme from a performance by a choir in Australia where O Praise Ye The Lord  by a certain Noel Dexter was included. It has also been included in a number of hymnals both here in Jamaica as well as overseas.”

Dexter also related an incident at a conference on creating Caribbean church music.

“I was approached by a young lady at this conference who told me that she had a recording that would blow my mind as this is what Caribbean church music should sound like. She excitedly put in a cassette tape and pressed play.   “When I heard the music I had to smile. It was a recording of my arrangement of O Praise Ye The Lord,” he shared with the audience which burst into applause.

When asked what he wants his musical legacy to be, Dexter humbly replied, “He tried.”