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Music Notes: Behind the Scenes

An era is coming to an end; no more services on Wednesday afternoons! For sure, you all dutifully revved up your computers on Sunday mornings at ten to watch the online version, but starting this Sunday, services will happen live at the church at the regular time. It’s the beginning of the New/Old!

Anyway, the end of an era deserves some attention, so I thought I’d give you a glimpse behind the curtain, so to speak, and illuminate these intimate gatherings.

Every Wednesday for the past many weeks (I’d have to open up a calendar to figure out just how many) the SouthWest recording crew has assembled at the church to put together the service. We imagine you all sitting in your comfortable pews, but the church is always empty. Beryl is there of course, as am I, and most Wednesdays, Katherine rolls up on her bike with Percy in his seat behind her. Koji sets up the elaborate recording equipment (a tablet fixed to a stand he made specially for the purpose), and Amy is usually still in the office downstairs. Really, the atmosphere is very much more than pleasant.

Percy charms us all! He first dedicated himself to a detailed reorganization of all printed matter in the church, chiefly hymn books. So, if you heard the odd thump, it was invariably produced by the connection between a couple of books in freefall. He has taken crayons to draw, snacks to eat, but really, his most favourite activity of all has been to help Amy downstairs. They stuff the newsletter envelopes so they’re ready to be delivered, and Percy takes great pride in his contribution. So, if you’ve noticed a distinct absence of background sound in recent weeks, it’s because he’s having a great time with Amy in the basement!

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You all know Koji, and appreciate his style, elegance, perfection, and humility. He’s simply an all-round, super nice person. He gives the sign to start, and stands calmly throughout.

What words to describe Katherine? Stylish and elegant work pretty darn well with her too. Easy-going, dependable, enthusiastic, and most of all…she sings beautifully! Katherine works from home and spends afternoons taking care of Percy. They + Sam live close by in Verdun, thus the bike. I have really, really appreciated her ability and her presence.

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You definitely all know Amy! She has come up the stairs to sing as well, and once with Katherine too. Quite a treat. We were talking about kids one day, and Amy and I were recalling the days that Theo would come to the church for piano lessons. Just about every lesson started with a couple of timed races – from the stairs up to the choir and organ space to the back of the church. Now, of course, he’s a strapping six feet tall! The message to Katherine? Time goes by so quickly!

It really does.

We’re looking ahead to a return that at first will seem quite daunting to many of you. It’s been such a long time, and those old familiar routines feel like last winter’s slippers. Now they do, but once you bridge that divide between last March and this September, so much of that time-warped awkwardness will merely evaporate.

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If you concentrate on the essential experience of a church service at SouthWest, you’ll be just fine, and everything will be as you remember and so wonderfully familiar. By that, I mean sitting in that familiar space, hearing the familiar creaks of the roof, looking at the sun play its way through the stained-glass windows at the front. There will be a message, and there will be music. You’ll feel the connections with those who are there, and heightened connections with those you will miss so terribly. Community.

The trick is not to dwell on the peculiarities of the experience…the face masks, the distance between people, and the sore lack of coffee and cakes afterwards. With a little luck, the weather will accommodate and we can move outside after the service, knock elbows and commune with the sky.   

The thing is, the small Wednesday service group started to gain some normalcy simply because we’d done it so often. The same will happen with our New/Old services, I’m sure. And, in a few weeks, it will seem commonplace to see Vernon and Doug with masks on, and wonder if they’re scowling or smiling!

Thank you Wednesday crew,

and Hello Sunday!


Sarah

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Music Notes: Christmas

There was something about the light this morning as I made my way across the yard to the barn. First stop: the release of the mad collection of chicks, hens, geese, ducks and ducklings. That’s when I realized there was something in the sounds as well, or to be more precise, the lack of sound. Most of the hens were still very sleepy on their roosts – it’s quite a lovely sight, made more lovely by the tree branches we’ve used to make their roosting spots, stretching across one side of the coop in unsymmetrical fashion – but there most of them were at a little after six this morning. I’m not used to waking hens up in the morning for breakfast!

Sarah’s version of a manger scene.

Sarah’s version of a manger scene.

The sky was dark, sounds were muted, the wind was insistent, and I thought that if it were simply 20 degrees colder and the trees stripped of green, it would qualify as a classic late November morning. I heard the whisper, the one that will become steadily more insistent.

The world may be upside down, but the days will become shorter and the winds of winter will blow…

Every year, a week or so before Christmas, the SouthWest choir and favourite guests invite everyone to the church for our Carols by Candlelight. It used to be in the evening, but, for the past few years, we’ve gathered at dusk, and the candles shine brighter and brighter as the service wends its way. Our only real tradition is that it always happens, that we meet in celebration and leave the church with a smile.

There have been years when certain pieces have been prominent or certain guests regular features, and if I sit back in my chair for a few minutes I can fill my mind with the sounds of these memories. The singers we’ve had in the choir, the instruments to accompany, from bagpipes, drums (yes, Donald!), tubas, French horns, violins, viols and cellos, hand bells, cornetto, trombones and sackbuts. All these players and choir members have been so special, and made every carol service so memorable. It’s our tradition, and it’s always different. I loved the year Georgia, Lexi and Stephanie were our presenters, and the years the kids from the Alleluia choir came to sing, and I also remember last year with the reading of the Gift of the Magi, even though some thought it too long. But that’s always been an essential element as well – the review and classification as ‘one of the best of all time’, or simply wonderful!

And in exactly four months, real time, it will be Christmas.

The candlelight service will fill the church with light once more and we will gather in celebration. There are no plans yet – what we will be doing or singing – but for me that is also a tradition: puzzling out the candlelight service when the leaves are still on the trees.

There are people we will miss in a painful way, but we’ll take time for that too.

Sorrow borne in the company of those who share in the same memories is a sorrow that leaves room for the recollections that bring solace as well.

We may be singing through masks, but I’m sure Dorothy will have something organized so that the masks are in some way festive!

A wise person once told me that we should always have something to look forward to. This can be a perfect cup of coffee after the morning chores or a glass of wine at the end of the day. A movie or a hockey game, cruise on the Mediterranean Sea or a walk on the shores of a lake in the Laurentians. Something on our own horizon.

So, I move that we all look forward to this year’s Candlelight Service. Starting now. You have no idea what it will look like, but you never do! You know that the candles will be lit, that we’ll sing, and that we will honour our Christmas tradition.

Now, for a perfect cup of coffee…

Sarah  

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Music Notes: The Dawn Chorus

My father died last fall, November 13th to be precise, and less than 24 hours later a large goose walked up the lane. We named him Palmer, my father’s middle name, and he’s been with us ever since.

Not being too experienced with geese, we really weren’t sure for a while whether Palmer was goose or gander, but time will tell, and a few months later we knew that my father’s continued presence had indeed been ensured by a gander. A gorgeous, mostly white gander who can spread his wings wide and fly in great arks over the field. He always comes back, invariably to stand beside his one true love, Joey the goat. This attachment was established very soon after Palmer’s appearance, and he has remained steadfast, even with the arrival of two sweet female goslings this spring who have grown up to be fair beauties. You can plan love’s perfect path, but the heart goeth whither the heart beats strongest! He is king of the barnyard, and struts about with manly bravado.

The sky unleashed a torrent last night, preceded by streaks of lightning and huge cracks of thunder that sounded far too close. Carson the black lab did his utmost to muffle these exclamations, chiefly by lying down on my head. He is terrified of storms! So, I waited it out with him till it was quiet once more, and the countryside returned to a harmonious slumber.

The dawn chorus begins at around 5 o’clock, and it is no wonder that so many composers have been inspired by such sounds, both wild and domestic. Chattering, chirping, whistling, rustling: they all conspire to the morning symphony! When Rae-Bob the rooster starts his crowing, we know the mad collection of hens, chicks, ducks, ducklings and geese are milling in increasing intensity within the confines of the coop, ready to explode through the doors and express their delight in another day. From this cheerful cacophony, one voice stands out, and it is most definitely not the voice to inspire a sweet melody: Palmer exclaims, and it is very, very loud. He seems to scream at the day, as though he wants to bring everyone to attention before all semblance of fowl control is beyond his grasp.

Where there is life, there will be music. Always! Whether we summon it forth or not; life makes music. Where there is a heart beat, there will be rhythm.

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I like to think of Palmer as the Schönberg of the yard (atonal and discordant!), but the chicks move around like a happy chorus of children singing their favourite songs, all in slightly different keys…

Impossible to ignore. Just like life, really.

Sarah

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Music Notes: Each Blade of Grass

There is a hymn in More Voices that is a particular favourite. When the book first came out, the choir used to practise a new hymn and sing it on at least a few Sundays before ‘releasing’ it for general use. We tended to be quite proprietorial about some of them, I admit, and Each Blade of Grass (MV 37) was definitely one such hymn, so it was a long time before everyone in the church was given the opportunity to sing it!

We agreed that the music had a Cape Breton feel to it, and somebody in the choir (probably Aline) heard Rita MacNeil’s voice singing it. The music is listed as ‘Anonymous,’ from the United States Sacred Harmony, the 1799 edition. The words were written by Keri K. Wehlander in 2005 and they are beautiful. The text could stand alone as a poem, but the way the words are moulded to the melody makes the hymn so very effective and evocative.

Each blade of grass, ev’ry wing that soars, the waves that sweep across a distant shore, make full the circle of God.

Each laughing child, ev’ry gentle eye, a forest lit beneath a moon-bright sky, make full the circle of God.

When do we not need to be reminded of these truths?

Each cosmic hue, ev’ry creature’s way, all form the beauty of this vast array, make full the circle of God.

We are called to cherish, to love, and to protect. And I’d say we’re called to – as the late John Lewis would say – “make good trouble” when the circle of God is strained.

One of the joys of research is to discover links not previously apparent, and this was true for me with the author Keri Wehlander. She wrote the words to a few other hymns in More Voices, including In You There is a Refuge (MV 84) and the wonderful When Hands Reach Out Beyond Divides (MV 169), as near a call to the cause of social justice to be found in either hymn book we use.

When Hands Reach Out is a beautiful and emotional hymn that resembles Each Blade of Grass in that the text alone is strong, but welded to the music it becomes so much more powerful. And curiously, the music for MV 169 is also listed as ‘composer unknown.’ The stirring melody was taken from the Southern Harmony, 1854 edition: turbulent music for turbulent times; the United States of the mid 19th century was certainly divided on the most basic social issues, the same issues it grapples with today.

And yes, the choir held MV 169 very close for a very long time. The music is dramatic and poignant, and the words sound a clarion call:

When hands reach out beyond divides and hope is truly found, each chain of hate will fall away and bells of peace shall sound.

When fear no longer guides our steps and days of war are done, God’s dream for all shall live anew; our hearts will heal as one.

When race and creed blind us no more, a neighbor’s face we’ll see, and we shall dance the whole world round, for love will set us free.

Ah, the capacity of words and music to move and inspire us. As long as we are able, we must stand together and sing.

Sarah

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Music Notes (Aug. 7, 2020)

[Our Music Director, Sarah Fraser, will be contributing “Music Notes” each week to keep you updated on all things ‘mostly musical’ in the SouthWest community.]


Over my head, I hear music in the air

I’ve walked into the church many, many times on my own over the years, from early in the morning to late at night. The remains of the latest activity could always be seen or felt, whether music binders piled on the piano, plates of cookies in the kitchen, chairs around the center table in the basement pushed back in such a way as to suggest their most recent occupants. The continuum of life.

The first time I set foot in the church after the virus had written its edict, I felt the space crowded with sounds. Voices, music, in a blend of distant memory and the kinds of recollections that blur the lines between past and present. It was eery, a little sad, and then very, very poignant.

I think that is why I have put off writing about Steve for so long. His death came as such a shock, and although a day will pass now that I don’t think about him, I always hear his voice as strong as ever as soon as I enter the church, sit down at the piano, look up at the organ or the chairs at the front of the church where the choir sat for rehearsals. I knew Steve through music, that is where we met. And as with all true musicians, music ran through every fibre of his being. He had a performer’s perfectionism and edge; everything he sang had to mean something to him for him to feel he could bring a song to life. And to me, he simply got better and better.

Dennis, Dorothy and Aline came out to my place last Friday – to sit among the hens, chicks, ducks and geese in a summer’s gentle breeze, to eat together and to laugh a little. Wolf the organ builder came by as well to share the humour only he and Dennis can appreciate, Dorothy kicked the ball for Carson the black lab, and I was able to speak with Aline in person for the first time since we last saw each other in early March, when everything that was to ensue was on a horizon beyond imagination. She is strong, our Aline, so for those of you who have worried, she’s going to be alright. She brought me a programme Steve had carefully saved from a concert Roman gave years ago, the programme notes and ticket stub neatly enclosed. So very Steve.

Over my Head… we sang this many, many times with Steve, and oh, did he love it! The choir sings a constant refrain, and the solo voice rises above it. It’s an arrangement of an African American spiritual that we did first with Amy, years ago, for Black History Month. A wonderful piece that fit him like a glove.

Steve thrived on new challenges, and whenever I’d propose a new song, he had a way of shrugging, smiling, shuffling and laughing all at the same time. He always said he’d think about it, listen to a few other versions if he could find them, and let me know the week after. He invariably said yes. I discovered his voice when we started presenting evenings dedicated to the music of the 30s and 40s; Steve always did his best with the bass line in Mozart and Vivaldi, but it was in Gospel and Blues that he came to life. 30s and 40s ushered that in, as well as a whole lot of fun working with Linda and Amy as part of the Showstoppers. He sang music by Thomas Dorsey and Paul Simon, and last year for Remembrance, Where Have All the Flowers Gone. Ah, that was beautiful.

New was good, but when I’d pull out Over My Head with a question mark on my face, I was always met with the smile a musician reserves for a dear old friend - a favourite piece of music.

It starts with the choir singing Over my head very softly, and when Steve would step forward to sing When the storms of life are raging, he took command, and he beamed with life, love, and happiness.

Over my head, I hear music in the air,
Over my head, I hear music in the air,
Over my head, I hear music in the air,
There must be a God somewhere.

I miss him, we all miss him, and when we meet together again, we will join hands in spirit, hear his voice and gentle laughter, and feel so much better for having known him.

Sarah

Steve Scales singing Gospel, with Sarah at the piano.

Steve Scales singing Gospel, with Sarah at the piano.

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UK Celebrates 75th Anniversary of VE Day

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May 8th marked the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, and Britons were not about to let it go by unacknowledged. Originally, all sorts of parades and live concerts and events had been planned but of course, these had to be cancelled or adapted as the UK battles the coronavirus. Below you’ll find a link to a video that aired on the BBC of people all over the UK singing along to Vera Lynn’s wartime standard, We’ll Meet Again, led by Welsh mezzo Katherine Jenkins and some old footage of Vera Lynn herself.

Dame Vera Lynn, who turned 103 in March, doesn’t sing in public anymore, but apparently “raised a glass” and watched the TV special with family from her home in East Sussex as several neighbours gathered - at safe distances - outside to sing along.

Here’s a link to a story from the Newham Recorder: Dame Vera Lynn thanks people marking historic anniversary under ‘difficult circumstances’

And here’s that video. Warning: get your tissues ready.

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Sunday Service, May 10, 2020

Stepping it up again this week: The service once again shot at SouthWest United (Thank you, Koji), with Pastor Beryl and Sarah Fraser contributing music  Once again, try to have  a candle on hand, and something to light it with.

The scripture readings for this Sunday, the 10th of May, and the 5th week of Easter are:
Psalm 31, Parts 1 & 3, VU page 758, and
John 14: 1-14

The Hymns will be:
I am a Child of God (More Voices 157) and 
Precious Lord, Take my Hand (VU670).

Sarah will also be playing The Sound of Silence, by Paul Simon.

The online service for May 10th will be available as of Sunday morning here

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Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Bagpipes but were afraid to ask

Photo: Jenna Dennison on Facebook

Photo: Jenna Dennison on Facebook

Jenna Dennison will be at SouthWest United this Sunday to play, demonstrate, and yes, answer any and all questions. She is young, enthusiastic, and very, very talented! 

She's been to the church a few times to play, most notably when she also wrote a special Remembrance Day arrangement of In Flanders Fields for the choir and soloists.

Come and enjoy!

Worship begins at 10AM and is led this Sunday by Stewart Burrows.

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Carols by Candlelight/ Chantons Noël December 15th

Drop the shopping, drop the cooking, and come to SouthWest’s annual carol service on December 15th. Feel your cares drop away as you sit for an hour or so in the soft candlelight and listen to Christmas music both traditional and less well-known. Be prepared to lift your voice in song and experience some of the magic of Christmas.

Carols by Candlelight/ Chantons Noel is at 4pm, Sunday, December 15th, 2019.

Prenez congé de vos achats de Noël et laissez l’esprit de la saison vous réchauffer pendant ce service annuel de l’Église Unie du Sud Ouest, Chantons Noël. Soyez prêt à chanter vos cantiques préférés a la lueur des bougies.

Chantons Noël/ Carols by Candlelight aura lieu le dimanche 15 décembre 2019  à 16h.

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