Good Friday 2018, Sacred Concert

After a couple of years in which Good Friday did not feature music, I did a sacred concert this year on organ. I forget how it transpired but ultimately I settled on using the Moravian Church's Passion Week Manual (1955) as a basis. The manual is a series of services for each night of Holy Week which are basically the gospel narratives harmonized into one continuous reading, interspersed with hymns. It was those hymns that I wanted to explore. I initially chose about a dozen, and pared that down to nine. I went about seeking settings of the tunes for the various hymns. Many I had on hand, but I had to go seeking a couple. One of my favorite Moravian hymns is Ten-thousand times ten-thousand, and I was certain I wanted to include a setting of that in the program. However I could not find a setting anywhere. I asked several colleagues and sources to no avail. I found out about a piano setting by Margaret Sandresky (in Winston-Salem), but when I looked it over decided it was too pianistic for my purposes. Along the way I traded emails with Wayne Leupold in Colfax, who publishes a lot of Sandresky's organ music. He happened to copy the composer on a message, and later that same day I had a phone call from Mrs. Sandresky. She offered to compose something for my needs, saying she already had the broad shape mapped out in her mind! The piece arrived a scant 5 days later. I was thrilled at her generosity, and delighted that the listening audience would get to participate in a premiere. In years past the program from this concert has offered poetry for meditation. I decided this time to concentrate on explaining the hymns and the settings being performed., along with some Moravian history. I think it turned out well, and have heard many favorable things in the days following. The program cover is above. The complete booklet is here. It's a scan of the hard-copy, so it's a little whonky.