PITTSBURGH – Alexa Kay is a Quaker, a denomination which has embraced simplicity and shunned more extravagant forms of worship, even singing. Nevertheless, Kay likes to sing, and that’s what led her ...

The crowded room echoes with lilting voices raised in a simple, timeless song. There are no instruments, no audience. Just a chorus of four-part harmonies sung from a book that's as thick as a Bible.

A previous version of this story incorrectly identified where Dan Patterson was a professor. He taught at UNC-Chapel Hill. Nearly 50 years ago, John Feddersen heard what he described as “stark, just ...