“Veni Sancte Spiritus,” the first section from my Vespers, showed up on The Early Music Show April 21st on BBC Radio 3. Lucie Skeaping profiled Piffaro, The Renaissance Band, and among Weelkes, Finck, and Susato, there I am, with Joan, Bob, and The Crossing. Thanks, BBC, thanks, Piffaro!
Thomas Lloyd agrees and disagrees a bit with me in the Letters section of the Broad Street Review. We corresponded quite a bit on this, after my article (itself a response) on Bach, the St. John Passion, and the charge of anti-Semitism. Our emails drifted into the area of historical criticism of the authorship of John’s Gospel, but Dan Rottenberg’s editing spared BSR readers from our wisdom on that topic, for now.
Lloyd directs the Bucks County Choral Society, and choral and vocal studies at Haverford College. Bach is in good hands with Tom’s championing of his music, as I also have been!
How hard could it be to write a unison choral piece? How about a piece for unrehearsed singers—not a choir— who get only one shot at it?
Well, that’s much of church music, the congregational singing part of it, anyway. I’ve written many hymns for just this situation, but with those you at least get multiple verses to figure things out. With service music, such as a Mass, you go though it once and, until a week later, that’s it.
The Association of Anglican Musicians commissioned me to write music for the Closing Eucharist of their National Conference in Philadelphia, June 17–22, 2012. I completed it about a month and a half ago, and after field-testing and tweaking, sent the unison congregation part to the printer yesterday for inclusion in the bulletin.
The Mass for Philadelphia will be sung during the Closing Eucharist, 3:30 pm Thursday, 21 Jun 2012, at St. Luke and The Epiphany, Philadelphia. Assisting in the congregational singing will be a massed children’s choir from churches in the greater Philadelphia area. The Mass is for unison congregation, organ, and optional cantor and descant.
Actually, the congregation for this premiere will be mostly musicians, of course, and will include many fine singers (or those like me, who are just bold singers), but we’re hoping for this to be the start of many more opportunities for its use by all sorts of churches, big and small. I’ll also be an exhibitor at the Conference, bringing along lots of my choral music, including full scores of this Mass.
My deepest thanks to Phillip and Heather Shade and the AAM.
In the Broad Street Review, I reply to an article…
I’m glad that Steve Cohen has a hard time believing Bach to be anti-Semitic. It’s hard to believe because Bach isn’t. Nor is his St. John Passion, nor is John’s Gospel (which Bach sets verbatim), nor are the churches that read it every year.… “Only those who cry out for the Jews may also sing Gregorian chants,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed in 1935.…
Thanks to St. Peter’s Choir and director Peter Hopkins for a beautiful rendition yesterday of My Shepherd Will Supply My Need. Lovely concert built around the music of Victoria, ending with Robert Maggio’s grand “Because of the Joy.” Hopkins instilled a warm spirit around the entire evening.
Plus I got to spy friends and hear lovely singing from Maren Montalbano Brehm, Jeff Dinsmore (beautiful solo on the Gerald Near), Colin Dill, Bob Bader, and all the singers and scholar choristers. It was fun to hear my anthem, of which I’m particularly fond, written when Coolidge was President, if I recall.
My anthem My Shepherd Will Supply My Need will be included in a concert by the Choir of St. Peter’s Church, Old City Philadelphia, Peter Hopkins, Music Director, this Sunday, March 18, at 5pm. Called “From Here to Eternity,” the concert features music of Tomas Luis de Victoria along with sacred anthems and motets of present day composers, including Philadelphia-area composers James Lavino and Robert Maggio. Directions.
My most recent anthem, Come, Gather All, is mentioned in the March 2012 issue of The American Organist, the publication of the American Guild of Organists. (Page 31… my picture… Jackie thinks I’m squinting…)
I just received the recording of the Mass for which it was commissioned: It was the 100th Anniversary of St. Eleanor Church, Collegeville, Pa., and the celebrant was the new Philadelphia Archbishop, Charles J. Chaput.
My thanks to Paul Berchtold, who wrote the text, to Music Director Dan Weckerly, to Mark and Donna Pinto, and to everyone in the choir who put this together. Moderately easy, SATB, organ, opt. brass quartet. More information here.
