Liturgically speaking, Christmas and Easter are my favorite two times of year when I get to either perform or hear beautiful music of the season. Saturday, I had the good fortune to play a Christmas program with the singing group, Nobody's Business at The Silo at Hunt Hill Farm in Connecticut--Skitch and Ruth Henderson's inspired and beautiful cooking school/art gallery and concert space. Nobody's Business is made up of three female singers--Alecia Adams Evans, Cadden Jones, and Linda Sue Moshier. To an intimate audience in a space that feels like someone's Vermont retreat living room, the ladies were their charming selves, and sang beautifully--popular Christmas standards, and some carols.
This morning, I had the great good fortune of playing the piano for "A Service of Lessons and Carols" at Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew at West End Avenue and 86th Street in Manhattan. The splendid Minister of Music there, Dr. Frank Glass, had assembled an amazing choir, and some awesome string players, a fine percussionist as well as a sumptuous oboist for their annual service of lessons and carols. The choir and players simply knocked the ball out of the park with their illuminating performances today. I was so lucky to be in attendance, and especially blessed to be asked to be a part of the music-making.
One of my best friends from my undergraduate school--UNC at Chapel Hill, Tony McDowell, who passed away a number of years ago from Burkitt's lymphoma (chemotherapy complications), was the long-term companion of Dr. Glass. Tony--a splendid baritone and voice teacher--and I spent many happy holidays singing in the choir at Church of SPSA on special occasions at Frank's invitation. In addition to the moving and beautiful arrangements we got to sing, I always looked forward to the fellowship I felt from all the folks in the choir and the church there, and I got to spend a little time making music with Tony, or "my beloved girlfriend" as I often called him.
Having grown up as a pianist in a Southern Baptist Church in Durham, NC (Angier Avenue Baptist Church), I remember the Christmas eve service when the church lights would be turned off and candles were lighted as we sang "Silent Night." I can't even write about it without getting choked up with emotion at the holiness of that moment, and the specialness of it as well. Even as a young man, I realized that that moment was a very special one, and if I were lucky enough to have a few more moments like that in my lifetime, that I would have lived a very rich life.
And this morning, I was blessed to have another such moment. For the hymn, "Silent Night" today, only a trio was playing--a harpist, oboist and string player, so I was free to sing the hymn at my piano, or attempt to. As I looked out into the church at the sea of candlelight, I got a sense of what it must have felt like on that day long ago when the light of the star shining over Bethlehem announced the gift about to be bestowed upon the world. I couldn't sing any longer, and I was moved by how--for a brief, beautiful moment, we were able to dwell as a people in harmony. There is a big banner normally in the church of SPSA that speaks of how good it is when brothers and sisters can dwell together in harmony, and surely I was experiencing that this morning.
The extraordinary minister at SPSA, K. Karpen, who is both highly intelligent and very funny, and a great humanitarian, and under whose ministry I have seen that church blossom into the incredible church that it has become--vital, loving, compassionate, kind, demonstra-tive--was in his typical rare form in the pulpit. He spoke of things that sometimes divide us, but shouldn't--race, sexual orientation, politics, intolerance--in a way that had us laughing at one moment, and tearing up at the next, inspiring us with his words in a way that we can really hear them. And, as if this wasn't enough, Victoria Clark, the Tony-award winning Broadway star of "The Light In The Piazza" who has one of the most glorious sopranos I have ever heard, sang "O Holy Night" so exquisitely, so lustrously that I could hardly breathe.
So, thank you, Church of SPSA for the gift of Christmas--for the tidings of comfort and joy that I feel every time I attend your wonderful church.
1 comment:
Dear Phil,
Thank you for your part in making last Sunday at SPSA such a moving and memorable event. I think those of us sitting in the pews were dazed and proud to be part of such an amazing service.
I had a friend visiting from Ottawa, who asked me if it was a professional choir we had hired! Sydney Johnson
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