21 for Easter

I'm issuing an Easter challenge to the members of Bethany: Let's run out of choir robes for Easter.  That means we need 21 singers to commit to singing on April 24th.  Of course, anyone is welcome to join anytime.  We have so much great music planned throughout Lent, Holy Week, and Easter.  I think that Good Friday in particular will be a service full of beautiful and meaningful music.

But if you can only join us for services on one day all spring, make it Easter!  The music is selected, and the folders are just waiting to be picked up.  Sunday afternoon rehearsals should be convenient, and we have treats most weeks.  Make an offering to the church of your time and your voice.  Let's hit 21 for Easter.

So what's your excuse now?

Lutherans are singers.  I know this.  It's encoded in the DNA of our church, and it's one of my favorite things about being an organist in the ELCA.  And yet...every church struggles for choir members and participation throughout its music program.

Like most music directors, I've heard pretty much every excuse and every explanation.  But I just want to let everyone know that we're taking away one of those excuses for the next few weeks.  We're moving choir rehearsals to Sunday afternoons.  So if you're one of the people who has told me that you're busy on Wednesday nights, or you're one of the people who just can't get yourself out of the house on a dark winter evening, now you can just stay after the second service and sing with us for another hour.  You can set aside another hour of peace and calm in your week and enjoy some time making music with friends.

If you can't sing, maybe you'd rather play in the bell choir?  We're rehearsing between the services (9:45 - 10:30).

Easter may be months away, but planning for Holy Week and Easter are currently at the top of my to do list.  I would love nothing more than to have a huge choir for that most important festival of the church year.  We have 21 choir robes to fill.  Think it over.  Make it a New Year's resolution, part of your commitment to the church - and now there's one less excuse to give it a try.

Ascension

The Easter season is coming to an end this Sunday. It's amazing how the spring has flown by, and we have reached the time of Ascension. This is not a holiday that is marked by famous hymn tunes, like most festivals of the church year.

The closest we will come this week is our opening hymn "Hail Thee, Festival Day!" It may not be the best known hymn, but the chorus is memorable and hopefully allows an opportunity to ring in tunefuly for part of each verse at least.

We'll also sing "Beautiful Savior" at communion. As a St. Olaf alum, it's naturally one of my favorites, and I expect to hear plenty of voices during communion for a change! The closing hymn will bring a musical ending to the Easter season with "A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing!" which is sung to one of the most well-known Easter tunes.

This Sunday - the hymns!!!!!

Five exclamation points in today's title. That's how many appear in this week's hymn titles. If that doesn't tell you how to sing them, I don't know what does.

We haven't run out of Easter hymns yet, and this Sunday we're singing two of my favorites: "Hallelujah! Jesus Lives!" and "Alleluia! Jesus is Risen!" They're great pieces of music, of course, upbeat hymns of praise. I was also thinking, though, that it's their scarcity that adds to their value. (Somedays my economic and finance training interact with my music.)

There are no malls playing these hymns as part of their background music. No rock artists record albums with these tunes. No dogs will ever bark these tunes. Chances are you hear them only once or twice a year at church, yet I bet most people have at least the first verse memorized and instantly recognize the hymn from just the first few measures of the introduction. Don't those facts speak strongly of the power of music in general, as well as the educational power of church music?

While writing this post, I had fun imagining the new release of Bob Dylan's Easter album (just as horrific a train wreck as his Christmas album), and thinking how much I would love to hear Renee Fleming's performance of them. What singer or group would record your dream album of Easter hymns? What tune would be the first track?

Easter music

This Sunday marks a huge musical transition. The minor key Lenten music will be swept away for the joyous tunes of Easter. We will have a brass quartet enhancing much of our music, as well. We will be hearing and singing the music of triumph at this climax of the Passion narrative.

To write about the hymns we all know so well seems almost superfluous. We'll be singing "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" and "Christ is Alive, Let Christians Sing!" I hope that we'll have a full church with everyone singing loudly and proudly. I know most of us in the Cleveland area have been in a great mood this week thanks to the warm weather, and I hope that boisterous mood suffuses our worship as well.

I would like to draw your attention to the prelude, because our guest French horn player Jon will be playing Strauss's "Nocturno." It is a common piece in the horn repertoire, and it's loved for its beautifully flowing melody. I think it will serve as a nice transition from Holy Week to the triumphal march of our processional hymn.

I know the church will be full of beautiful flowers. (Sitting up front is even better because you can smell all of the fragrant lilies and hyacinth!) I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday - Alleluia!

Happy Easter!

Alleluia! Christ is risen indeed! I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday, likely eating too much good food with family and friends. We are, as always, a post-Easter people, living joyously in these beautiful spring days.


I want to thank everyone who helped fill Lent, Holy Week, and Easter with such wonderful services: the choir, who sang superbly on some challenging repertoire; Cassie and David, for their beautiful solos on Easter; Tim, who enhanced our Easter worship with his trumpet playing; Linda and the volunteers of the altar guild, who did so much work during and between services; Pastor, ushers, acolytes...and everyone else I may be forgetting. It's amazing how many people put forth their effort to serve our church.

I've heard some positive feedback about this blog lately, and I really appreciate knowing that my readers are connecting with Bethany and our music ministry in particular. Your comments and participation are always welcome.

Since I've been asked recently, the way to add your comment (and read others' comments) on the blog is to click on the word "comment" at the bottom of any given link. But you're also welcome to converse with me or any member of the WAM committee anytime. We won't put too much pressure on you to join the choir, I promise, but we sure do welcome participation and suggestions in any form!

Once again, Happy Easter, and we sure hope to see you all back in church next week. Check back here to find out more about the music we'll be singing!

Easter prelude

Some organists love to begin Easter Sunday with a bang - a bombastic, praiseful piece of music. That's not me. Don't get me wrong, there will be plenty of joyous, loud music, with trumpet descant and all our voices raised in celebration.

But I believe that the celebration and joy we feel as disciples of Christ on Easter is best experienced in contrast to the sorrow of Good Friday, the confusion of His early followers following the crucifixion, and the quiet faith that sustatined the women who discovered the empty tomb.

My Easter prelude this year will be "Credo in unum Deum" by Samuel Scheidt, a 16th century German composer. It is a chorale setting of the Creed, the centerpiece of worship.

The liturgical mass parts (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus) make it clear that the Creed is the heart of worship. Musicians throughout the ages have placed it in the center of their mass settings. This is, incidentally, one of my isues with the ELW and its division of the service into Gathering, Word, Meal, and Sending. It omits the explicit mention of the recitation of the tenets of our faith!

How difficult it must have been for the followers of Christ to have faith, in the aftermath of His death and because of their own persecution. We all face challenges to our faith, personally and as a body of Christians (see the recent cover of Newsweek, for just the latest example of the latter). We are an Easter people, though, with confidence in our faith and a bold statement of belief.

So sing your heart out this Sunday on some of our greatest hymns! But use the prelude to consider as well the quiet voice of faith within us that can boldly state "I believe in one God..." Then let the celebration begin!