blog.sinden.org

• 21 hymns
• 18 choral accompaniments
• 3 Organs (all played, at one point, in the space of 10 minutes)
• 2 Noels
• 1 Christmas Toccata by Messiaen

Labels: church music

The airport has just paged someone named Dewey Decelheimer.

Labels: airports, funny names

First, I saw Helvetica and decided I like movies about fonts.

Here's a font movie you can watch now: Trajan is the Movie Font

Labels: film, graphic design

(in "Aggregate" from Bibliodyssey)

Listening to Handel's Messiah this month?

Keep an ear out for "We like sheep".

Labels: randomness

For the last few years about this time (two weeks before Christmas), King's College in Cambridge, England, quietly posts the leaflet for their Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.

The 2007 leaflet [PDF - 247 KB] was posted today.

The bidding carol, "Glory, alleluia to the Christ Child!", is by Alan Bullard (b. 1947). You can view the first page of this carol [PDF - 50 KB] from Oxford University Press. An MP3 sample [785 KB] reveals a little more.

The first carol after the Second Lesson is accompanied by a note indicating that it was transcribed by Emma Disley while the choir was on tour.

The College's commissioned carol follows the Third Lesson. It is "Stardust and vaporous light" composed by Australian composer Brett Dean. The carol probably will not be available from Boosey & Hawkes until some time next year.

An Arvo Part commission from 1990 surfaces after the Fifth Lesson.

After the Sixth Lesson is Elgar's "I sing the birth was born tonight". We'll have to check past leaflets, but we think it has been some time since this carol has been part of the service. Perhaps its inclusion has to do with the sesquicentennial of Elgar's birth?

The new material doesn't stop with choral music. The second concluding voluntary is a "Sortie on 'In dulci jubilo'" composed for the service by David Briggs.

Labels: church music, King's College (Cambridge)

A new year has started -- a new liturgical year, that is.

If you're an Episcopalian in the United States (careful, because if you're in the Diocese of San Joaquin in California, you might not be any more) you, or a liturgical authority acting on your behalf has probably already made one resolution for you: begin using the Revised Common Lectionary rather than the prayer book lectionary.

This change was a "resolution" at several decision making gatherings of the Episcopal Church, and it "passed". But secular New Year's Resolutions are not often subject to a vote. Nor do they often pass, so to speak.

There's no need for liturgical resolutions to supplant those made at the turn of the calendrical year, but couldn't the liturgical church use the framework of liturgical year as an opportunity to do certain things?

The liturgical year resonates with its own rhythms of responsibility, but we would be remiss to refer to these as resolutions. Nor would it be a good idea to make resolutions based on these responsibilities:

• Advent - Light more candles.
• Christmas - Light even more candles.
• Epiphany - Ho hum.
• Lent - Work on getting wax out of pew cushions
• Easter - Celebrate wax removal with lilies!
• Pentecost - Start working on getting the pollen stains out. Notice that pollen fades over time and virtually disappears in candle light. Light some candles.
• Advent - Light more candles.

Liturgical resolutions are a great idea, and for Advent this year, I think I'll resolve to come up with some.

Labels: liturgy

Churches in Ireland are ringing their bells at 2:00 p.m. on the Global Day of Action on Climate Change.

Is there any reason U.S. churches aren't picking up on this?

Do U.S. churches even have bells?

And why 2:00? Is that the Irish noon?

Labels: churches, environmental stewardship

Congregational UCC in Iowa City gets some press about their new Casavant organ: "City church pipes up"

Headline with organ pun? Check.

Article with numbers and sizes of pipes?

The new organ includes 1,609 pipes ranging in size from two inches to 16 feet long. It will be set up behind the church's altar.

A hackneyed description of the action?

In simple terms, the organist plays the keys and two cords connect from the instrument to the pipes. When a key is pressed, it signals a release of air that shoots up the appropriate pipe to create the sound.

A musical gaffe?

William Crouch, the church's organist, will play and be accompanied by a 30-person choir led by choir director Richard Bloesch.

Check, check and check.

I love it when those choirs show up to accompany me.

Elsewhere in Iowa: Three women have been church musicians for combined total of 170 years.

Labels: organs