singing an old song

Despite the news coverage of division in the Episcopal Church, two of our Indianapolis parishes, St. Paul's and Trinity spend a considerable amount of time and some money to make beautiful music together. Several years ago, the two parishes started the Two Choir Festival where a guest conductor comes for a week to conduct the two choirs together in a Sunday morning eucharist service and Sunday evening choral evensong. This past year, the festival was put on hold, while the two choirs performed Brahm's Deutches Requiem with full orchestra at St. Paul's. The Brahms was conducted by St. Paul's organist and choirmaster, Frank Boles. Now we are working on Mozart, Mass in C Minor, K. 427 (417a). This is Mozart's other monumental unfinished work (besides the Requiem), and will be sung by more than 100 voices. The joint choir will also perform Benedictus sit Deus, Venite populi, and the popular Ave verum corpus. The concert will be November 9, Sunday, at 7:00 p.m in the St. Richards School gym next to Trinity. If I were a smarter blogger, I would figure out a way to put this up on this page until 11/9. If I don't figure it out, I may post again a couple of more times. We are currently rehearsing on Wednesdays at St. Paul's. It is a lot of work, but a great joy.

Michael Messina, the Trinity organist and choirmaster, is conducting the Mozart concert. One of the great joys of singing in the Trinity choir is working with him. He is a fine teacher, has an incredible understanding of the role of music in the Anglican tradition, and he is just fun to be around. He is also a friend. Churches ought to have communities of friendship and support as part of their mission work. I feel fortunate that mine is with the choir.

The Two Choir festival is especially important to me because it is what drew my partner and I to Trinity when we first moved here and we were looking for a parish to attend. Love is often not at first sight, but we chose Trinity fairly quickly -- it was the second parish that we had visited. It's been a good fit for us.

The Two Choirs Festival returns on Sunday, February 8, 2004.