Arts at St. Bede’s presents

Requiem Mass in the Octave of All Souls

Choirs of St. Bede’s & Christ Church, Portola Valley

Presented at Christ Church, Portola Valley

Directed by Jane McDougle and Matthew Burt

Friday, November 6th,  7:30pm

John Rutter’s, Requiem (1985) is a beautiful, contemporary setting of the ancient texts for choir, soloists, and a small band of instruments. All are welcome at this lovely service, and will be invited to submit names of those to be remembered. Free will offering.

Choral Evensong for the First Sunday of Advent
St. Bede’s Choir with Jane McDougle and Rani Fischer
Sunday, November 29th, 5pm

Marking the turn of the church’s year into the rich and complex season of Advent is a wonderful opportunity for celebration in words and music. Focussing our attention on the witness of the prophets to the forthcoming birth of the Messiah, our Evensong will include things both ancient and modern. Christmas is coming: join with us in remembering the journey of the light from the darkness. The music will be from the Renaissance, with the choir’s Introit will be “Rorate coeli” by Jacobus Handl, the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis from Orlando Gibbons’ Short Service, and the anthem will be “Veni Domine” by Spanish composer Juan Esquivel.
Free will offering

Cecilia Redux

On Sunday, May 3, at 4pm, the St. Bede’s Choir will present Blessed Cecilia! –a repeat performance of the choir ’s beautiful concert earlier this year. The program includes the exquisite Serenade to Music, for solo voices and piano accompaniment, by Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Benjamin Britten’s lovely Hymn to St. Cecilia, to a poem by W.H.Auden.

We would love to share these musical treasures with you. We invite you to come and sit in our lovely redwood sanctuary with us, and allow us to give you this gift. The concert will be less than an hour, is free, and will be followed by a light, strawberry reception in the Great Hall.

- Jane McDougle

Ludus Danielis Slideshow

The Play of Daniel — The 13th Century Opera Sung in Latin Chant was presented at St. Bede’s on Sunday, December 14, 2008. The most well-known of the medieval Latin Music-Dramas, it was written for performance in Beauvais Cathedral by the subdeacons and youth of the cathedral in the octave of Christmas, and is a spectacular piece of music theater, filled with drama, beautiful vocal and instrumental music -— even a lion or two!

The 13th Century sung Latin chant as performed for the Duc de Beauvais comes alive on in all the rich panoply of medieval drama. Daniel — his rise to fame as a prophet — his descent into the lion’s den and his miraculous vindication are all told in sublime harmonies. St. Bede’s Choir, under the direction of Jane McDougle and outfitted in stunning period costume, made its first foray in the dramatic arts.

- Judy Werner-Hall

In Praise of Church Music (and Musicians)

In less than four days, over 9 million YouTube users have watched 47-year-old Brit, Susan Boyle audition for “Britain’s Got Talent”–England’s version of “American Idol.” Check it out for yourself.

An Andrew Sullivan reader reacts:

Susan Boyle looks like a lot of the women with whom I’ve sung [in church choirs] over the years, and has the spunk that they have, too. Her chat before and after indicated a bright spirit, I know the type and have sung with these women, and girls, many times.

Also, women’s voices don’t really reach full maturity until early to mid-40’s. I’ve gone from a soprano to a high mezzo and my voice is completely different than it was 5 years ago (I’m 39.). I suspect she is reaching her voice’s best range at her age.

Creative spaces are to be found in the unseen and unexpected. They should have some church choirs on American/British Idol, both countries have very strong traditions of group singing and as a result individual singing. There are more good singers around here than you can shake a stick at. I bet she sings in her church choir in her ‘villages.’

Stand By Me

A musical prayer from people jamming together from all around the world, just in time for Maundy Thursday.

more about “Stand By Me“, posted with vodpod

Pure Joy

And now, in honor of Easter Sunday’s approach and the coming joy of the resurrection, here’s Julie Andrews and a bunch of kids in Belgium’s Antwerp rail station, reminding us how to sing and dance.

And don’t forget:

Maundy Thursday services at 12 noon and 7 pm, April 9 (with foot washing!)
Good Friday prayer book service at 12 noon, April 10
Good Friday Meditation on the Passion of Christ with hymns, anthems, poetry and scripture at 7 pm, April 10
Holy Saturday Easter Vigil at 9 pm, April 11 (featuring 4 baptisms–three babies and one young adult!)
Easter Sunday at 8 am and 10:15 am, April 12, with our annual Easter Egg Hunt following the 10:15 am service

Kids Heal, Sing, Preach and Lead

This Sunday, March 29, during the 10:15 am service, our Sunday School kids will once again lead our worship by reading from scripture, helping preach, laying hands on those who come forward for healing, and by singing a four different songs over the course of the service (as led by The Rev. Jane McDougle, our associate for music and arts).

For the Offertory Anthem the kids will sing, “The Magic Penny,” a reference to the Pennies For Peace fundraising drive they have just completed, in which they raised money to pay for schools in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan. Here’s a preview of the song (and yes, YouTube does have everything):

Before We All Burn

Someone made a home-made music video of Death Cab For Cutie’s “Before We All Burn” (see below) that references this past summer’s California wildfires and the huge impact they had on communities throughout our state. It’s a touching testament and it reminded me of one of the many reasons why we are doing the Watershed Rehab work we’ve begun this year.

This Saturday, March 21, 9:30 – 11:30 am, that work continues at our adopted site (yes, we’re calling it “Bede’s Bog”) in the Palo Alto Baylands near the duck pond. Please join us and help weed out the invasive plants that tend to suck the moisture out of our local environment, leaving behind dry husks of grass that easily burn and lead to those devastating wildfires. All ages are encouraged to come help.

Oboe, Organ, Millennia Too!

This Sunday, March 22, at 4 pm, St. Bede’s Arts Series will present the oboe and organ duo known as “Millennia Too!” with Alison Luedecke on the organ and Susan Barrett on the oboe (as well as the oboe d’amore and the English horn).

They will be performing works by Bach and Handel plus modern compositions including one by Bay Area composer, John Hirten, of St. Stephen’s Church in Belvedere. Tickets are $25, $18 for seniors. Students may attend free.

Blessed Cecilia

This Saturday, Feb. 28, 7:30 pm, in the nave of the church, the St. Bede’s Choir will perform a collection of Lenten hymns, including Benjamin Britten’s Hymn to Saint Cecilia and Chorale After An Old French Carol, as well as Ralph Vaughan Williams’ piece, To Music, for vocal soloists and piano. Admission is $15 ($10 for seniors and students).

Come and soak up this beautiful music, and take the time to reflect and notice  God during this season of turning (penance) from Winter to Spring, from sorrow to joy, from death to life.

Here’s a taste of the Britten:

St. Cecilia, a third-century martyr, is known as the patron saint of musicians because tradition holds that she sang as she died at the hands of her imperial Roman tormentors.

Sermon: Even Grasshoppers… and Slumdogs

Recently I went, as I’m sure many of you have, to see the movie, Slumdog Millionaire. I am still reeling from the images. Huge images of small children picking over the mountains of garbage, trying to make a living, and of the adults using them to make a profit. Images of the sprawling tent cities, encompassing stories of such need, pain and violence. And knowing, knowing so surely that these scenes are not imaginary, are not fiction, but play out again and again throughout the world, even in our own country.

What to do? Surely we should be doing something? Can it ever be enough?

I am reminded of Oskar Schindler at the end of another immense movie, Schindler’s List. The movie about a German during WW2, who employs over a thousand Jews in his factory, initially to make a profit, but who ends up working passionately to rescue them from being sent to concentration camps. He is thought to have saved over eleven hundred Jews.

Near the end of the movie, Oskar is talking with a friend, and he says: “I could have got more out. I could have got more. I don’t know. If I’d just…I could have got more.”

What to do, what to do?

He Got Rhythm… and Études

Pianist Thomas Pandolfi will perform great works of the past 150 years, ranging from the romanticism of Liszt and Chopin to the jazz of Gershwin: this Saturday, November 15, 7:30 pm as part of the Arts at St. Bede’s series. Tickets are $25, $18 for students and seniors.

The Washington Post calls him, “an artist who is the master of both the grand gesture and the sensual line.” Click here to listen to Pandolfi playing a portion of the Gershwin medley he’ll be performing Saturday.

Recapping All Saints Week

The election was a bit of a distraction, but it’s worth pointing out that over the course of last week, we at St. Bede’s celebrated All Saints in a bunch of different ways.

On the first Sunday of November this year, as every year, we celebrated All Saints Day with a Baptism, welcoming a child into the eternal communion of saints. And our rector preached on God’s command to us that we be saints, asking “What does it mean to be a saint?” (Her full sermon can be found by clicking the “read the rest” link below.)

The evening before, our choir joined up with the choir of Christ Church, Portola Valley to perform the Victoria Requiem in memoriam of all the saints during a special Saturday Eucharistic liturgy. (Listen to an exceprt here.)

And then last Wednesday, the day after the national election, St. Bede’s hosted a special Saint’s Supper, during which many Bede’s folk gathered to talk about the saints in their own lives who have passed on. Kitty took notes of what everyone shared about the particular saints in their lives. (Click here to get a sense of what sorts of saints have enriched the lives of our parishioners.)

Now, as we move forward toward Advent, Christmas and beyond, we hold in our hearts all those saints who have come before.

You Can Vote However You Like

A non-partisan public service announcement from the students at the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia:

(Click below for the complete lyrics.)

Victoria Requiem Saturday Night

Six parts. Two choirs. One beautiful liturgy.

More here.

The Ten Commandments of Luuuuuuuuuv

In honor of the Sunday School’s upcoming discussion of Moses this Sunday, here’s Aaron Neville:

What’s the Deal with Halloween?

Does anyone else wonder why we dress up as monsters and try to frighten each other with images of death and violence, all while smiling and laughing and chomping on sweets?

Halloween is, as always, a night just before the coming of winter, the season of death. And indeed, tomorrow, many will celebrate El Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead). And in the Episcopal Church, Halloween is All Hallow’s Eve, the evening before All Saints (Hallows) Day–the day on which our church honors all those Christians who have died (all of them, not just a select few). At Saint Bede’s we will be marking that occasion with a Requiem service featuring Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Officium Defunctorum, or “Office for the Dead” (more on that here). And on Sunday, we will commemorate All Saints Day with a baptism, a service welcoming a child into the life of Christ–which, according to Christian tradition, involves a spiritual passage through the death of one’s old life and into a new life of peace and faith and joy.

So clearly Halloween has to do with death… Is Halloween a celebration of death? Do we prepare ourselves for the coming season by physically embodying our worst fears about the ugliness of death? And do we then generate the courage and hope we need in the face of all that horror by partying while wearing death masks? By encouraging kids to jovially threaten their neighbors? Trick or treat!

Maybe Halloween helps serve as a reminder of how terrible and violent our earthly lives can be. But also, paradoxically, maybe Halloween allows us to revel in the joy and hope that can be found even in the midst of the horrors of death. Despite how hideous life can be, the love of God, the goodness of God, the peace of God is with us. Always.

Victoria Requiem at Bede’s this Saturday

As part of the Arts at St. Bede’s series, the St. Bede’s choir will team up with the choir from Christ Church, Portola Valley, at 7 pm, this Saturday, November 1st, to perform the 1605 masterpiece, Officium Defunctorum, by Tomás Luis de Victoria–otherwise known as the Victoria Requiem. Written to commemorate the death of the Dowager Empress Maria of Spain, this intensely passionate six-part work is one of the finest of the Renaissance era and not to be missed, particularly as part of a Eucharistic liturgy. Take a minute and listen to this clip right now:

Our own Jane McDougle will be conducting together with Matthew Burt of Christ Church.

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