Thank you to the Youth Chorus!

Thanks to the St. John Youth Chorus for a wonderful season! The choristers completed the year by singing for the parish Confirmation Mass on May 6, presided by Archbishop Schnurr.

Two weeks ago on April 21st, the choristers traveled to Our Lady of the Rosary parish in Green Hills to join the children's choir there for Mass to celebrate the Third Sunday of Easter.

Bellabration in Kentucky

Five handbell ringers from St. Johns attended the Handbell Musicians of America Area V regional convention in Louisville, Kentucky on April 13 - 14th. Activities included classes in ringing technique and music reading, and rehearsing and performing for the convention's closing concert with 400 ringers, brass and percussion.

Holy Week: Old and New

As Holy Week approaches, our choirs and instrumentalists are preparing excellent music for the Rites:

• Joel Martinson's Missa Guadalupe will be heard on Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday.
• A new setting of Ubi Caritas will be heard at the offertory on Holy Thursday - a great contemporary piece by Norway native Ola Gjeilo.
• Mozart's lovely Ave Verum Corpus.
• The late Richard Proulx's stirring rendition of At the Cross, Her Station Keeping on Good Friday.
• Craig Courtney's fantastic contemporary anthem One Faith, One Hope, One Lord on Holy Saturday.
• Charles Wood's sprightly Easter Carol This Joyful Eastertide.

Learning the New Mass of the Roman Missal

Recordings are available at the National Pastoral Musicians website to learn the Roman Missal Chant Mass:

http://www.npm.org/Chants/order.html

We will be singing the following

Kyrie - Greek

Sanctus - English (we will be singing this at a faster pace than recorded here!)

Mystery of Faith - Third Form

Amen

Agnus Dei - Latin

RIP Gerre Hancock

The ecclaistical music world is mourning the loss of Gerre Hancock, former organist and master of the choristers at St. Thomas Church on 5th Ave. in New York City. Dr. Hancock maintained and enhanced a long tradition of excellent choral music at St. Thomas that included a professional choir and full-time boys' choirschool. Before coming to St. Thomas, he was the organist and choirmaster at Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal) in downtown Cincinnati.

Dr. Hancock was also a world-renowned organ rectalist, known for his dazzling organ improvisations. He was arguably one of the greatest improvisers at the organ that this nation has ever seen, and wrote a superb text on the subject that has educated and inspired many musicians on the subject - including myself.

The prelude this weekend will be Dr. Hancock's Air for Organ, written for his wife Judy.

Mass Settings for Winter and Spring 2012

During the months of January and February, the parish will return to singing the Gloria from Steven Janco's Mass of Redemption. We will introduce a revised Mass setting into the parish repertoire during these months: Richard Proulx's Community Mass. Thankfully, Richard revised these before his untimely death in 2010. The adapted acclamations adapt easily to the new text and are very easy to sing!

On Ash Wednesday (February 22nd), we will begin using the chants of the Roman Missal. I will post more information about this beautiful music in the coming weeks.

New Songs for Advent

During the Advent season, we will be learning two new songs. "Rejoice, rejoice believers" is a joyful song of anticipation, using a Swedish melody. We'll sing this song for the next three weeks, starting this Sunday. Nick Cardilino, the singer-songwriter who joined us for Generations of Faith last month, has written a gorgeous setting of the Magnificat that we'll pray during the last two weeks of Advent, and on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (January 1).