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.

Organ tune

To partner with our recent sermon series, relating to questions about our faith from a child's perspective, I used John Leavitt's "Scenes of Childhood" for some of the organ music at our second service. The sermon series addressed questions about our faith that were asked by children in our congregation. The music by Leavitt seemed to me a natural choice to pair with worship during the series. The series concluded today with a sermon related to what heaven is like. I used the final movement from Leavitt's suite for the postlude.

Leavitt in turn used poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson as the inspiration for his music. The composer intended that the poems be read before/after the performance of the music; we simply print excerpts in our printed bulletins. The last piece is called "Pirate Story" drawn from a poem of the same name. The piece begins with a riff on "Sailor's Hornpipe" and concludes with a riff on the Little Prelude in C attributed to JS Bach. Folks were immediately captivated by the music, many of them associating the music with the Popeye the Sailor Man television show from several decades ago. To help put the music in perspective, I tracked down a short summary of the tune.

While this sermon series has been going on, have also utilized art work by children from our congregation in our narthex gallery area. We currently have up work by older elementary children; it was preceded by work by younger elementary children. In mid-August we'll feature work by middle- and high-school students. It's been enjoyable having so much to connect to worship, and to celebrate the earnest questions children have about our faith, and their work in the arts, and music (and poetry) for them.

(After a quick look it seems the music is out of print, else I would put a link to it..)

Music ministry

I was struck this week by how cool and exciting it is to be in church music these days. I think a key factor in my recent excitement is the setting in which I am working these days, but some of this would be relevant no matter where I was working.

Our congregation partners with Bread for the World. Yearly we take a Sunday to emphasize that relationship, and sponsor a letter-writing campaign to our state and federal political representatives on matters of hunger relief. A couple of years ago I got the idea of us celebrating communion on the day of this Bread for the World emphasis. It seems to resonate in the minds of our congregation. Also, in our congregation are a number of retired church professional: minister, educators, musicians, administrators and missionaries. These folks provide a unique energy to our life and mission and bring all manner of vibrancy and insight to our deliberation and priorities.

All of that is prelude or background to my thinking this week. In planning the music for Sunday, I wanted organ music that would "ping" off the Bread for the World relationship, be sensitive to our communion celebration, representative of our global faith, and musically challenging for me and compelling for the listener. I recently purchased a couple of folios of Asian-fusion music by Chelsea Chen, inspired by (I presume) her own ethnic heritage. One of the pieces in her collection of three Taiwanese folk songs is titled, "Song of the country farmer." I thought this might be a relevant piece for this Sunday. I did some investigating on the Internet (fruitless, but amazing that I could do that!). I asked one of our retired medical missionaries if she recognized the tune. "No," was her answer, but she allowed the piece was extremely reminiscent of indigenous music of Taiwan. I checked with the publisher via email to see if Chen had provided any additional notes that didn't appear in the folio. "No," was also their reply, but here, contact her directly via email and ask her yourself. A short email elicited an overnight reply! Chen was able to give me a little background on the song, just enough so that I can intelligently answer the questions I know I will field when folks hear this piece!

I was struck by how the resources available to me have expanded exponentially since I began church music 25 years ago. The wide array of repertoire that is being written for the global church, based on indigenous folks songs is new and exciting for me, and much-appreciated by this congregation. The ease with which I was able to contact the publisher and the arranger herself and get some helpful information, and form a nascent bond over a shared interest in folk music has made my day and makes me grateful.

For what it's worth, the other music in this Sunday's service includes Michael Jothen's "You are the branches" from Choristers Guild; Anne Krentz Organ's arrangement of "Mfurahini alleluia" in the Laudate series from Concordia, and a mix of old a new hymnody from the Presbyterian hymnal, "Glory to God."

PipeScreams, the untold story

When I was in divinity school in Washington, DC I attended an American Guild of Organists event at the Kennedy Center with friends. It was billed as Pipe Screams and involved several prominent organists in the area sharing the program. I don't remember too much more about it, other than my reaction being that if I were going to ever be involved in church music again, one of my goals would be to do a concert like that.

Fast forward 5 years or so and I had indeed left ordained ministry and was back in church music. It took a couple more years, but when I was in Ashland, VA I did my own PipeScreams concert. I strove to target the children and youth in our congregation as attendees and got a handful of older students to help with set-up and decorations. The second year I borrowed a fog machine from my wife's work (Richmond Ballet); the kids hung all kinds of spooky decorations in the organ chambers. We all had a blast with it.

When I landed in Black Mountain, NC 8 years ago, I began PipeScreams again, in my third year. It's been a big hit. A couple of years in I got a church member to construct a couple of home-made fog machines. We invite everyone to come in costume; plenty of folks of all ages do. We have tried getting flyers in the hands of school students to encourage them to attend. We've tried newspaper and radio publicity. But the biggest thing that has drawn folks has been word of mouth, as the event has held steady over the years.

I have tried different gimmicks along the way. One year a young attendee was so struck by the fog that she draw a picture of the organ with "smoke" coming out of it. The next year, I used that image on the cover of the program. Three different years I have had piano students of mine play one of their "spooky" sounding pieces on the organ as part of the program. Most years I do a short introduction to the organ about halfway through the event: I explain some basics about the instrument, let a couple of kids blow a pipe; that sort of thing. The repertoire has held steady over the years with some perennial favorites. I have introduced different music and rotate through those titles over the course of several years. If you're interested you can view my working repertoire document here.

 PipeScreams is one of three organ events I do during the year. I do a child-friendly Christmas concert in December. I also do a more formal "sacred concert" for Good Friday most years. I feel that PipeScreams and JinglePipes lay the groundwork for a child or older student to experience the Good Friday concert. I haven't had this pattern in place long enough to really see folks (children) making that connection and making the transition from the "fun" concerts to the more "serious" one. But I am hopeful that I'll see that soon.

We've begun our publicity for PipeScreams this year, but I could use some help with a title. Read below for the previous year's names. Drop a note in the comments if you have an idea.

PipeScreams

PipeScreams II, Scream Louder

PipeScreams III, Nightmare on Montreat Road

PipeScreams IV, Smokin' Pipes

PipeScreams V, Mikey's Back

PIpeScreams VI, ????

New organ at KCPA

Installation of a new pipe organ at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was recently completed.  The installation coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Center and the 80th of the National Symphony Orchestra (Christian Eschenbach, conductor). The organ replaces an instrument installed with the completion of the facility, which was never wholly satisfactory according to most cognoscenti. The new instrument has created its own buzz for being Canadian-built, as opposed to being an "American" instrument. Please enjoy this time-lapse video of the construction and installation of the instrument.



The music is portions of the Saint-Saens Symphony No. 3 in C Minor, the so-called "Organ Symphony."

Royal Wedding music

Robert Quinney (b. 1976), sub-organist at Westminster Abbey, provided organ music for the royal wedding in 2011.  Here he is part of a short interview with a commentator who obviously knows some about music-making.  The video is a nice introduction to the organ in general, and a tantalizing look at the Abbey instrument in particular.

Offertory switch

As I am wont to do on occasion, I played a piece for the offertory last Sunday different from what was printed in our worship bulletin. It being the week during which we organists celebrated the 327th birthday of JS Bach, I knew I wanted to play a chorale prelude but changed which one at the last minute. I went with "Christus, der uns selig macht, from the Orgelbuchlein collection. Here is the text and English translation of the first stanza of this hymn:

Christus, der uns selig macht,
kein Boes hat begangen,
ward fuer uns zur Mitternacht
als ein Dieb gefangen,
gefuerht vor gottlose Leut
und faelschlich verklaget,
verlacht, verhoehnt, und verspeit,
wie denn die Schrift saget.

Christ, who makes us blessed,
and who had done no evil,
for us was taken at midnight,
like a thief,
led before godless people,
and falsely accused,
jeered, mocked and spat upon,
as the Scripture says.

The coolest part of this particular setting of the chorale is a point near then end when the soprano voices contains a G and the bass an F-sharp; the alto a C-natural and the tenor a C-sharp! The chorale prelude is treated as a canon (two voices contain the melody but follow each other in this case by two beats), and is full of dissonance. But that moment is special to me.

Organ lecture-demonstration

Briggs told me last week that his class is doing a science unit on sound and musical instruments (he made a guitar out of a shoe-box and rubber bands with absolutely no help from anyone else at home). I offered his teacher the opportunity to take a short field trip and come visit the church's pipe organ. She took me up on it and with my permission invited all the second-grade teachers to visit. A total of 4 are making arrangements.

Briggs' class came this morning. He was very excited and proud, but was also a good host and let others ask all the questions about the organ and answer my questions to the class (to which he knew all the answers) and didn't gloat too much about having been allowed in the casework before.

I gave a short introduction on how sound is produced by wind, how an organ pipe is engineered to make sound, and the basics of how the organ is put together (blower, console, casework). I played a few snippets of music to demonstrate various sounds (diapasons, flutes, strings, reeds, ensemble). I let groups of five blow on a set of pentatonic pipes. They concluded by playing "Old MacDonald." And I answered lots of questions!

Best part of it all? I heard one student tell a classmate as they were heading out and back to school, "I want to come to this church sometime!"

PipeScreams III program

Below is the program for PipeScreams III, Nightmare on Montreat Road. The concert is this Sunday October 30 at 4PM at Black Mountain Presbyterian Church.

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
JS Bach (1685-1750)

Suite from Pictures at an Exhibition
Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)
Promenade
Il Vecchio Castello
Bydlo
Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells
The Great Gate of Kiev

Two Woodsy Pieces
Vladimir Rebikov 1866-1920)
In the Forest
The Bear
Caleb Holladay, organ

Suite Gothique Léon Boëllman (1862-1897)
I. Introduction-Choral
II: Menuet Gothique Nick Murphy, organ
III. Prière á Notre-Dame
IV. Toccata

JinglePipes

Black Mountain Presbyterian Church and Michael Barker, music director, present JinglePipes a fun organ concert for Christmas, Wednesday evening December 15 at 6PM at the church, 117 Montreat Road, Black Mountain.

The program will include favorite Christmas carols and songs plus beloved classical pieces for the season.

Special guests will be the Percussion Ensemble from Owen Middle School under the direction of J. Tyson Hamrick.

The concert will last about 45 minutes, is free and appropriate for all ages. Please join us.

Spooky Music!

Some images from PipeScreams II: Scream Louder. Thanks to photographers Charlotte Sprawls and Levi Bannerman.

We all scream for PipeScreams

I googled "pipescreams" this morning and found hundreds of references. I found "pipescreams" events in

Bridgeport, CT (their 9th annual event in 2009)

Colorado Springs, CO

Manchester, MO (in conjunction with a trunk-or-treat event)

Santa Barbara, CAI didn't see mention of an event in Washington, DC. It was in DC, at an event sponsored by the local American Guild of Organists Chapter that inspired me to begin PipeScreams at Duncan Memorial UMC in Ashland, VA in 1996.

Some of the events I found in my search included choral singing (!!). Most urged folks to come in costume. Most billed themselves as family-friendly.

But none of them mentioned anything like the big surprise in store for us at BMPCNC this coming Sunday afternoon at 4PM! None of them! Don't miss it! Hint: Maia C's drawing of our organ was my inspiration.

PipeScreams II: Scream Louder (program)

Mike Barker has announced the program for PipeScreams II: Scream Louder. The fun concert will be presented on October 31 at 4PM at the church. Also performing on the program is Nick Murphy, a student of Mr. Barker. The program is subject to change.

JS Bach, Toccata in D Minor
Bedell, All Hallow's Eve
Burgmueller, Ballade (Nick Murphy, organist)
Vic Mizzy, The Addams' Family Theme Song (sing-along)
Boellmann, Toccata, from Suite Gothique

PipeScreams II: Scream Louder

Join us Sunday afternoon October 31 at 4PM for the second annual Halloween organ concert, presented by Mike Barker. Keep an eye on the blog for details about the music you'll hear. Come in costume and afterward join the fun trick-or-treating on Church Street. New this year: a fog machine to add to the "spooky" ambiance. The concert will last about 45 minutes and will be suitable for persons of all ages. And it's FREE!

New Organ

A new organ has been installed at Jacob's School of Music at Indiana University (Alma mater of our own David Starkey). The dedicatory recital will be streamed on Friday 4/30. Check out the details here, and especially take a peek at the photo gallery of the installation at the bottom of this page. Enjoy!

Travels

As one might expect, with three kids under foot, international travel is pretty much out of the question for me for any number of reasons. So I have to travel vicariously through family and friends. Jane C. from choir was in Spain over Holy Week. Mindful of her home-bound choir director, she took a picture of this instrument. She thinks it's Barcelona, but can't quite remember. (Anyone know for sure?) Jane didn't hear anyone play this organ and was appropriately bummed about that. Thanks Jane for the photo, and also the post card with the pretty stamp!

Organ Concert

Michael Barker will present a concert of contemplative organ music for Good Friday, April 2 at 7PM at Black Mountain Presbyterian Church. The program will include music by Cesar Franck (Prière), Paul Hindemith (First Organ Sonata, First Movement) and Artur Kapp (Grave) and selected settings of "Passion Chorale" (O Sacred Head Now Wounded). Print materials to guide the listener in prayer and contemplation will be available. The concert will be free and open to the public. The church is located at 117 Montreat Road in Black Mountain. Contact the church (828-669-2725) for more information or visit http://bmpcncmuz.blogspot.com.

PipeScreams

I gave a short concert on Wednesday evening for the kids in our Logos program and as part of our on-going Thursday Night Live fellowship series (I know: Wednesday/Thursday; just go with it). I had done three PipeScreams concerts in Ashland and they were very popular (they even led to spin-offs for July 4th). This being the first here, we kept it short and simple. One of my piano students, Nick M. played a piece from his lesson book. He did great! We had about 125 in attendance, including many in costume. Eli turned pages for me and worked the lights (killed the house lights at the beginning, and turned on the works lighting for the kiddie talk). It was his first time and he did awesome; I was very proud of him. Things look good for PipeScreams II next year!

It's called a cipher

Folks at 11AM worship today were treated to a relative rarity: a cipher on the organ. For an inexplicable reason a pipe sounds on its own. It our case this morning, it was one of the loud reed pipes and it began during the pastoral prayer.

The cipher actually sounded thrice. The first during the prayer: I checked my hands and feet to make sure I wasn't touching anything. I also re-cancelled all the stops and checked the crescendo pedal, thus turning everything absolutely off. But it happened again. I turned the instrument off. Several minutes passed while the liturgy continued. I turned the organ back on for the offertory (a soft selection from the Vierne 24 Pieces), and about 2/3 of the way through it sounded again (remember it's the solo reed). Off went the organ again, and I played the rest of the liturgy from the piano.

In olden days a bit of dust or other debris could get wedged below the pipe preventing the pipe valve from closing all the way, thus letting a relatively small bit of air into the pipe, and ultimately producing a sound. In modern instruments (like ours) very often electricity controls the flow of wind to the pipe. It could still be a bit of dust, but it could also be something hinky in the wiring to the specific pipe.

Whether it was dust or a wire, it happened to us today. And of course it was not one of the soft pipes under expression. It was a pipe in the solo reed stop, one of the loudest on our instrument. And it didn't happen during the postlude, when many are on their way out and only half listening. It happened during the pastoral prayer, a particularly moving prayer, after a particularly introspective sermon. Of course.

The organ is not broken. But it is most likely something in the wiring. I'll take a look myself in the morning, but I already have made a call to the service technician. They are usually good about getting round quickly in a situation like this.

Let's hope we've heard the last of this sort of surprise for a while!

Photo courtesy of creativecommons.com

Quite a milestone

from the United Methodist News Service:

EXELAND, Wis. (UMNS)--First United Methodist Church celebrated the 100th birthday of organist Helen Aspseter on July 12. Aspseter was playing the prelude, accompanying the hymns, and providing worship music throughout the service, just as she has done virtually every Sunday and holy day for the past 74 years. Her tenure began shortly after she married Andy Aspseter, a Great Lakes seaman, and he brought her home to Exeland. He left her in the house across the street from the church while he went to start the fire to warm their new home. The pastor appeared and asked if she would play for the Christmas Eve service that evening. She did, and she's been at it ever since. On July 12, the church was overflowing with well-wishers at the morning worship and later at a musical program in her honor. From youth to grandparents, the program featured performers of all ages, many of whom had been her students.