Whatever your tradition, I hope that your Holy Week and Easter have been as meaningful and joyful as ours. As I am a pastoral musician, it's been a busy two weeks, but such blessings!

Two weeks ago, on Passion Sunday, the St. Timothy's choir sang Charles Wood's beautiful St. Mark Passion. The area was under a high-wind advisory, and when we came to the part where the choir sings the tumultuous, "And they laid their hands on Him, and took him; and the disciples all forsook Him, and fled," the high winds caused a blink in power followed by a minute or so of no power at all. The organ, the wind chest of which is filled using an electric motor, sort of wound down into groans, and the choir kept going, God bless them! It reminded me of the organ 'symphony' in Dubois' Seven Last Words of Christ during the rending of the veil of the Temple and the graves opening...Did I say that I am extraordinarily blessed by the singers whom I direct, everywhere I direct? My St. T choir regulars are a group of most willing and good-humored singers--not a big ego among them, just joyful music-making--and we had the "three young guys" (classically-trained singers, the brother and two friends of our [also classically-trained and fabulous] soprano soloist) with us, which is always a treat.

On Palm Sunday, Schola Vox Clara sang for the Extraordinary Form Mass at the cathedral, which included the palm procession and all the hymns (Latin and English) sung a cappella (in the Extraordinary Form the organ is silent from Ash Wednesday to the Easter Vigil). This is 'my' other group of wonderful singers, who come together from several area parishes to support the EF and to help renew traditional music within the Catholic Church.

Back to St. T's on Maundy Thursday, with John Stainer's God so loved the world and the Procession to the Altar of Repose through the sweetly-scented garden full of blooming azaleas, singing Pange lingua. I think it must have been such a setting when Our Lord prayed in the garden for His Father's will to be done--such a contrast between the spring blooming and the stark reality of what the Father asked. "Jesus, with the Law complying, keeps the feast its rites demand; then, more precious food supplying, gives Himself with His own hand."

Good Friday the schola sang Palestrina's Improperia (Popule meus) at Sacred Heart, Dunn (our home parish), during the Good Friday Liturgy, which also included the chanting of the Passion according to St. John in Latin, the Adoration of the Cross, and a Cristo Muerte procession through the streets of town. Then we dashed up I-40 to St. Timothy's, where the St. Timothy's choir sang the St. John Passion of William Byrd (in English) and Goss' haunting O Saviour of the World. (My brain kept superimposing the Latin on the English and I think I'm going to have to write it up that way for next year.)

The most meaningful part of the liturgies of the Triduum, for my husband and me, is the Exsultet, sung in the candle-lit darkness of the Vigil on Easter Eve. Father Z has the most beautiful translation and a podcast of it here. I've been the cantor who sang this many times, so it was a great joy to be able to listen to Fr. Parkerson chant it and simply enjoy that great hymn of praise, and enjoy our first Easter as a united Catholic family.

This morning, it was back to St. Timothy's for the Easter Celebration. We had strings and brass in addition to our organ, and the music was, as usual, grand and glorious. We sang the Oldroyd "Mass of the Quiet Hour" (the one labeled "Third Communion Service" in The Hymnal 1940) with the orchestration I did several years ago, and the wonderful Macfarlane Christ our Passover. (Yes, I know it's a barnburner, but if we can't proclaim the Resurrection and our redemption with trumpets and strings on Easter, when can we? And only one 19th/20th c. American/Victorian piece at a time is not an embarasse de richesses, IMNSHO.) The main anthem of the morning was Jane Marshall's My Eternal King, which I think is a new all-time favorite and must-do for the choir (it was new to them this year). There is a lovely free mp3 of it here, and a simple commmentary on how Ms. Marshall came to compose it here. Ms. Marshall has a splendid compositional gift which she places at Our Lord's service with great humility.

(And I managed to stitch for a good hour or more on Angel of the Morning en route to Sacred Heart on Friday--somehow very appropriate!)

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!