Lift Up Your Hearts!

I've said before that I love going to a church that has services every single day between Palm Sunday and Easter, and I love even more living close enough that there's little hindrance to attending them.  Beyond ordinary busy-ness, that is, which we're supposed to be giving lower priority during the most momentous week of the Church Year.  Writing this up so late, I'll no doubt miss something, but GEIBTP.

Palm Sunday  I miss processing with whole palm branches instead of little leaves, but at least they were still cut from the yard instead of purchased.  The best part was the music provided by our own little orchestra!  It was great being led by trumpets: we stayed together much better than we usually do while trying to sing All Glory, Laud, and Honor spread out all around the church and the parking lot. The orchestra was amazing: these are middle schoolers, some of whom just started playing their instruments this year. Great music? No. Helpful? Very much so. Inspiring? Yes, yes, yes! And I was really impressed by their endurance.  Other hymns, songs, and anthems:

Ride On! Ride On! In Majesty! (tune: The King's Majesty); A Simple Word of Grace; It Was Finished on the Cross (solo); At the Name of Jesus (tune: King's Weston); O Sacred Head Sore Wounded (tune: Passion Chorale).  Plus an anthem, which I'm pretty sure was the beautiful To Love Our God (Mark Hayes, Hinshaw Music HMC1576).

Have I made it clear enough that our church likes to be active in worship, to sing, and to feast?

UPDATE 11/5/19  Aaaaargh!  As I've pointed out innumerable times, when Flash in these posts was automatically converted to iframe, which needed to be done, between the first embedded video and the ending text all other videos (and associated text) were accidentally deleted. Normally this doen't matter much, but in a post like this, with a week's worth of information, it really hurts. Still, it will stay like this until I find time and priority to see if there's a way to recover the data.

Sunday, March 30, 2014:

Christ Hath a Garden (Gerald Near, Belwin-Mills, GCMR3271).

Sunday, March 23, 2014:

I Am Not Afraid (Martin/Larson, Bekenhorst Publishing, BP1863).  (You must click the link to hear this one.)

and

Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) (Tomlin/Giglio/Newton/Raney), Hope Publishing, C5644).  (You must click the link to hear this one, too.)

Funny—with so much of the mainstream now celebrating Pi Day, I find myself less inclined to do so.  But for the sake of our grandson, with whom a phone conversation is more likely to consist of recitations of pi to 36 digits, or of whether a given number is prime or composite, than it is of  "what did you do today?" I will reprise the Pi Day video I posted in 2011.  Enjoy!

Our Ash Wednesday anthem:  I Am Not Afraid (Martin/Larson, Bekenhorst Publishing, BP1863).  (You must click the link to hear this one.)

And for Sunday, March 10, 2014, the beautiful Adoramus Te (David Hicken, Hal Leonard, 08748829).  This recording is still not our choir, but getting closer:  it's from one of the times when our children's choir sang (with many others) at Carnegie Hall for the National Children's Choir Festival.  I know one can get tired of anything, but at the moment I feel we could sing this every week!

Sunday, March 2, 2014: 

This being the last Sunday before the alleluias disappear for Lent, we pulled out all the stops with anthems and hymns featuring that joyous shout.

When in Our Music God Is Glorified (arr. by Mark Hayes, Beckenhorst Press, BP1750).  There's still no YouTube version, but the link takes you to JWPepper.com, where you can hear it.

This was our introit (alleluia section) and processional hymn (hymn section).  It was a clever idea, and mostly went over well, though the congregation was a little confused about when to stand.  We managed to sing and walk at the same time (always diffcult with an anthem, rather than a plain hymn), and a wonderful trumpet player (Nancy Micklos King) covereth a multitude of sins.

Our anthem was We're Gonna Worship Christ the King (Pepper Choplin, Lorenz, 10/4245L).  This version doesn't really do it justice, but YouTube beggars can't be choosers.  We had a great soloist (Mark King), the anthem was fun to sing, and it all came together very well.  (Yes, Mark is Nancy's husband, this making the third set of Mark-and-Nancy spouses in our immediate circle.)

Recently we attended another wonderful Horns & Pipes concert at Orlando's Cathedral Church of St. Luke.  We have been enjoying these ever since Heather made the suggestion back in 1996.  One of the works featured was Fisher Tull's The Binding.  I believe Heather and Janet in particular will enjoy hearing it, even though this version I found on YouTube is not quite as glorious as with the larger and more professional Horns & Pipes ensemble.

Sunday, February 23, 2014:  How Great Is Our God (Chris Tomlin, arr. Jack Schrader, Hope Publishing Company, C5491). 

While we were singing, one of the little girls in the second row got up and started to dance!

Our anthem, February 16, 2014:

Come, Christians, Join to Sing arr. Carlton R. Young

(Sorry, still no acceptable YouTube version.)

Our anthem for Sunday, February 9, 2014.

 The Lord's Prayer (Benjamin Harlan, Harold Flammer A8674)

I'm sorry for the lack of YouTube video, and even sorrier that you don't get to hear our own talented cellist, but you can hear the anthem, complete with cello part, at the JWPepper link above.

Our anthem for Sunday, February 2, 2014.

God Watches Over You (Joel Raney, Hope Publishing C5581)

Our anthem for Sunday, January 26, 2014.

Down to the River to Pray (arr. Sheldon Curry, Daybreak/Hal Leonard 08743261)

In one way or another, we covered a lot of bases with our church music last Sunday.  It was a wild ride.  But that's one thing I like about our church.  From Deck Thyself My Soul with Gladness to Shout to the Lord, from What Star is this with Beams so Bright to How Great Thou Art, from There's a Wideness in God's Mercy to a couple I'll highlight:

First, our choir anthem, Praise His Holy Name by Keith Hampton (earthsongs).

We arrived early at church, and having discovered that the processional hymn was a new one to us, I plunked it out on the piano several times before the director arrived.  It may sound easy, but it is decidedly not if you've never heard it before.  Mercifully, he took it down a whole third from what is written in our hymnal.

I would never have guessed that Lift Every Voice and Sing was an African-American song, much less the "Black National Anthem" as it is sometimes called.  Not knowing the tempo at which it is apparently usually sung (judging by the YouTube recordings I listened to), I took it at a faster clip, and would have guessed it to be a World War I era song, or maybe something from the Salvation Army.  If you listen to it and note that the middle part sounds like the more militant parts of Les Miserables, be assured that this was written in 1899/1900 by James Weldon Johnson and his brother John Rosamond Johnson.

The experience reminded my very much of singing with grandson Joseph, who chooses hymns not by name, but by number, providing an interesting tour through the more obscure parts of the hymnal.  Fun!

UPDATE 11/2/19 Once again, the automated updating of Flash videos to iframe cut out a chunk of the post, but I don't have time to worry about it now.

December 15 was the Third Sunday of Advent, also known as Gaudete Sunday.  This day of rejoicing in the midst of the somber Advent season was fitting for our church's service of Lessons and Carols.  Christmas Eve would have been still more appropriate, but in a time when many choir members are out of town for Christmas—not to mention a time when pastors really, really don't want to give up their opportunity to preach to a packed church—compromises are made.  I love the Lessons and Carols service:  lots of Scripture readings, lots of music, no sermon.  Apologies to my pastor friends and relatives....

I know that the entire service was videotaped, but that's not available right now, so I once again resort to what I can find online.  Except for Christmastime, that is, which features our choir of two years ago—before we joined, so don't strain your eyes looking for us.  I'll modify this post if and when our own versions become available.  Hymn numbers are from the Episcopal Hymnal (1982).  We, personally, did not sing all of the works listed below; some were solos, some by youth and children's choirs.

Prelude:  Soli Deo Gloria (arr. Mark Hayes)  Our youth choir sang the non-Latin words in English, but this Russian version is cool.

How thankful we are to have been part of this service.

Gaudete!

UPDATE 11/1/19 Ugh.  This time, the problem with the automated updating of Flash videos to iframe cut out not just a little but most of this post.  :(  However, I can't deal with it now.

Three anthems, sung Sunday, November 24, 2013.  [Oops.  Forgot to hit "publish" before going out of town.]

Be Thou My Vision (arr. Jay Rouse, PraiseGathering Music A08367).  Our choir director cynically (though no doubt correctly) posits that arrangers always mess with the originals because that way they can make money on them.  But in this case I have to say that as much as I like the usual version, I also like this unusual arrangement.  The syncopation makes it feel more Irish—though only if you take it a bit faster, as we did.  I don't like this rendition, but the other one I could find online I liked even less.

For the Beauty of the Earth (Folliott S. Pierpoint, Conrad Kocher, setting by Joel Raney, Hope C5733)

No YouTube video that I could find, but you can hear it at the link above.

UPDATE 11/1/19 Once again, the automated updating of Flash videos to iframe cut out a chunk of the post, but I'm leaving it as-is.