So what happened this past Sunday afternoon at my 25th anniversary concert, “Streams of Mercy, Never Ceasing”? The short answer is: a lot. But unfortunately for you, I’m more a fan of the long answer.
And speaking of “long,” it was a long concert -almost two hours long with no intermission. I swear that when I sat down with Barb Salvo (worship and music chairperson) and mapped things out, it looked it would be ninety minute concert. But that didn’t quite account for a slightly late start, for the addition of an organ prelude and organ postlude, the addition of a congregational hymn, and all of my blabbing between pieces (which I really did try to hold to a minimum, but with limited success.) My best friend Marshall Anderson quipped afterwards about how appropriate it was just before Richard Wagner’s 200th birthday to present a concert of nearly Wagnerian dimensions! At least it was a nice mix of various groups, which I hope helped the time to pass fairly painlessly.
The program began with an organ prelude played by Randy Fischer, who really pulled out all of the stops. In fact, Marshall said afterwards that the moment when he became most verklempt all afternoon was at the big climax of the prelude, because he had never heard the organ opened up to its full, thrilling splendor. For me, a similarly moving moment came when I had the congregation stand and sing the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy.” It was only the day before the concert that it finally dawned on me that it would be foolish to have a sanctuary full of singers and/or music lovers and not give them a chance to do some singing! And that proved to be an amazing addition to the program.
In addition to all of Holy Communion’s choirs, I was thrilled to have both the Lincoln Chamber Singers as well as about a dozen of my private voice students with me – but they had to sing right off the bat so the music majors could be back in time for that afternoon’s Honors Recital at 3:00. First up was a piece I wrote especially for this occasion, “Streams of Mercy,” which was sung jointly by the chamber singers and HC Senior Choir and which went quite well, despite the fact that the two groups never did get a chance to practice the piece together at all. (Shhh! That’s our little secret.) It was those two groups who also sang my Short Requiem, the piece which Derek Machan commissioned for the Waterford High School choirs for their January concert. This piece is unlike anything else I’ve written before, and I was really pleased that so many people appreciated it. Why sing a requiem on such a joyous occasion? I felt like it would be impossible for me to celebrate my quarter century at HC without taking a moment or two to remember some of the important people who are no longer with us. I actually intended to talk about that at some length- and even planned to mention my mom, who died the same year that I started at Holy Communion. But I was so choked up just saying the name of one beloved old saint named Ed Aller, I decided that I would just have to let the Requiem itself do the talking. And I have to say that my chamber singers and senior choir sang gorgeously – and Laura Wangaard, the instrumental teacher at Kathy’s school, handled the clarinet part beautifully. Bravo to all of them, and to the soloists: Laura Jansen, Becky Ryan, Clare Reinholdt and Nick Huff.
By the way, in between “Streams of Mercy” and my Short Requiem, I did two songs with eleven of my private voice students at Carthage: and the sound those young men made was absolutely glorious. We did Edvard Grieg’s “Behold a Host” (but transposed down a fourth because of my cold) – as well as a song of mine titled “Precious,” based on my dad’s favorite scripture passage, from Isaiah 42: See, I have redeemed you; I have called you by name: you are mine. You are precious in my sight and I love you.” I was so thrilled and honored that so many of my guys wanted to be part of my celebration, and their contribution to the concert was especially beautiful and moving.
I thought a fairly drastic change of pace would be in order after the Requiem, which is a fairly sophisticated choral work (at least compared to most of my compositions)- and I also wanted to tip my hat to the contemporary Christian music of my youth which influenced and inspired me. I chose three songs by Nancy Honeytree: Simple Song, Homemade Bread (one of my dad’s favorite songs), and Live for Jesus – which my friend Chris Roules liked to call “the Rock Song” when I would sing it for her back in the 1980’s. It was only as I sat down at the piano that I realized that I hadn’t practiced any of these three songs- and the first song I had probably not sung in twenty years. But there are some songs that are such a part of your soul that you couldn’t forget them if you tried. And fortunately, these were songs I could sing fairly decently even while nursing such a rotten cold.
After that came a song of mine that holds a very special place in my heart: Mercy and Love, inspired by the story of Jesus and the Ten Lepers. I wrote this a number of years ago for Trevor Parker, who was a Carthage freshman at the time- and I wrote it as much for his beautiful voice as I did because of his exceptionally appreciative spirit. And I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but I ended up sharing the song with one of my current voice students, Fletcher Paulsen, who has sung it for his church back home- and who sang it with me on Sunday’s concert. What a heart- warming moment that was for me.
So was the pleasure of welcoming Kate Barrow and Kathy up to the front to join me in my arrangement of “Softly and Tenderly.” Caritas hardly ever sings together anymore, thanks to our incredibly crazy schedules, but it makes those rare opportunities to sing together all the more precious.
After all that, I was grateful to be able to sit and listen as Holy Communion’s bell choir played an exciting arrangement of “Highland Cathedral.” And right after that, I acknowledged the presence of the extraordinary woman who started Holy Communion’s bell choir more than twenty years ago: Henrietta Welch, 99 years young, who was proudly seated in the front pew.
And while the congregation sang “Holy, Holy, Holy” I snuck out and brought back four floral bouquets, which were presented in turn to Dianne, Kate, Barb, and Marianne- the bell choir director, the youth choir director, the worship & music chairperson, and the woman who coordinated the spectacular reception downstairs. I wish I could say that I was thoughtful enough to think of this- but no, the credit goes to Kathy, to whom I owe so much. (In the words of TV’s Ray Barone, “if it weren’t for you, all this would be a smoldering crater.”)
The remainder of the concert began with Holy Communion’s senior choir showcased in three anthems: Martin Shaw’s “With a Voice of Singing,” Carolyn Jennings’ “Climb to the top of the Highest Mountain,” and Felix Mendelssohn’s “Psalm 95.” The middle piece has quite a story behind it; the choir sang it for the baptism of Anneka Barrow, one of our goddaughters- and on this occasion, 19 years later, Anneka herself sang the solo for the piece and did so beautifully. (There couldn’t have been a dry eye in the house.)
Then I almost had a crisis with the Mendelssohn Psalm 95 when I realized that I had a copy of the piece which was missing the opening solo, sung beautifully by Gary Wee- but a nice alto came to my rescue. Crisis averted.
I bet you’re starting to understand why this concert was Wagnerian in length – and I haven’t yet mentioned the participation of Musici Amici (“Musical Friends”) – Carthage alums who sang under my direction in the Chamber Singers. We hadn’t gathered for a performance in quite some time, but when I sent out an invitation, a very good group of singers responded enthusiastically: Sarah Gorke, Becky Whitefoot, Jennifer Cook, Alyssa Baylen Turner, Katie Biank, Paul Marchese, Jason Aaron, Andrew Johnson, Caleb Sjogren, Michael McDonnell, Justin Maurer, and Aaron Steckman.
And there was one more alum who came to sing, but he deserves his own paragraph. Nick Barootian grew up at Holy Communion and was a treasured part of the music ministry there from earliest grade school until his high school graduation. If the concert hadn’t already gone on and on, I would have told three or four of my favorite Nick stories. But instead, I settled for one story and then got right to the fun of singing “Great and Glorious Light” with him, just as it was sung the very first time back in November of 1998. And because he and Caleb were the duo-soloists when the piece was first sung at Carthage, I invited Caleb to join in the fun. And by this point in the concert, the Sunday School children and youth were up front, having sung a couple of pieces I’d written for them – and they joined Nick and Caleb and I on the chorus of this song.
And for the grand finale, everyone (including the bells) joined together in “Jesus, the Light of the World” … which is always the finale of our annual Christmas program. For this occasion, we replaced the Christmas verses with others that were more generally joyous. Speaking of Christmas, the second song of the afternoon for Caritas was the exquisite duet “Breath of Heaven,” which almost always is sung by Caritas on Christmas Eve. This past Christmas, Kate really needed to be with her folks in Minnesota, so Holy Communion had to do without Breath of Heaven for this Christmas. But they got to hear it on the 19th of May, and its beautiful comforting words actually fit the day perfectly.
What else? There was a lovely greeting and welcome from Pastor Mark Doidge, who is graciousness personified ….
and towards the end of the program, Kate Barrow presented Kathy and me with several gifts from the congregation: a framed copy of the concert poster- a photo album- and gift certificates for McDonalds and Ashling’s on the Lough. And after the concert was an absolutely beautiful reception downstairs in the Mark Hurn Room. (Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get down there in time to see everything at its pristine best, but Jean Veltman took plenty of pictures of it for me, which was so thoughtful of her.)
We had a very large crowd, which was thrilling and humbling, and I was especially happy that my dad and Sonja came from Madison, Marshall from Whitewater, and Mark, Polly and Lorelai. They were all right up front where the action was, and it sure was neat to have them there.
(Polly and I exchanged a funny look at one point. As I was playing “Strength” I flipped the third page over, expecting to see the fourth page, and was greeted instead by a blank sheet of paper. I exchanged a quick look of mock horror with Polly, but played on.) That moment underscored just how dangerous the concert was because there really wasn’t sufficient time to get everything perfectly in order before we began. (Vintage Greg Berg all the way.) But somehow that just added to the fun of it all. And it was incredibly fun for me; I can’t think of no better word to describe an afternoon of making music with some of my favorite people in the world.
pictured above: My Senior Choir and Carthage’s Lincoln Chamber Singers prepare to sing together. (The Chamber Singers were in the front row.) I have to say that even though final exams began began the next day, all but two of the members were willing and able to come sing – as were all but a couple of my voice students.