SouthWest Service for October 24, 2021

A Message from Sarah: Oct. 24, 2021

Music Sunday

A feast for the ears (and eyes!) this Sunday, as we welcome
Amy Barratt and Howard Welburn as special musical guests.
Yes, you all know Amy very, very well, but she always does
something special on ‘special’ occasions. Howard has been to
the church a few times, which makes him a repeat treat!

 Dennis Brown will man the ship (you should ask him about his
ship) and I will do my best to keep up with everybody.

 Come!

Updates to Green Zone Restrictions

With very little fanfare, the following changes came into effect for churches as of July 12th:

NEW UPDATES TO GREEN ZONE RESTRICTIONS (starting July 12, 2021)
Wedding Ceremony: 250 people registered at the door and seated throughout the service
Reception: Inside – 25 people, Outside- 50 people Distancing has changed to ONE metre from TWO metres for people from different residences. Masks required.
Worship: Distance of ONE metre between people from different residences if people remain silent or whisper. Distance of TWO metres when people from different residences sing or talk (masks required.)

Now obviously, our particular church couldn’t accommodate 250 even in non-Covid times! So it’s important that we keep safety as our priority and guiding principle. That is why two baptisms in August will not take place during worship but separately. Still, it’s nice to be able to relax the 25-person limit. We will continue to keep an attendance register at the door, but there’s no need to reserve in advance. If we should have 26 or 27 people for worship, we will make sure health measures are followed, and we will rejoice in their presence!

I don’t know if you noticed, but it seems to me that this is the first time since March 2020 that any kind of congregational singing has been officially sanctioned! Even if we’re still distanced, even if we’re still masked, in August we shall Lift Every Voice and Sing!!!

Summer Launch: June 27, 2021

Come join us for this last service before the July break with more than the usual amount of music…Hallelujah!

Amy Barratt and Howard Welburn will be behind the mics to sing a few solos and to invigorate our hymn singing (since we’re all still relegated to hymn mumbling in our masks…)

Big thanks to both of them.

Have a great summer, and I look forward to seeing you all in August full of energy, good will, and enthusiasm. And yes, ready to sing, sing, sing!

Greetings,

Sarah

For those who wish to watch the service from home and follow along, here is the downloadable order of service:

Montreal Gospel Choir Online Concert

A bit of shameless self-promotion from me. You’ve probably heard me sing at church, but did you know I’m also in a Gospel choir?

In the midst of Covid-19 restrictions, Montreal Gospel Choir, under the direction of Carol Bernard, has recorded a live concert featuring nearly 60 singers – myself included – and a band. We recorded the performance in a beautiful church outside Montreal and are feeling proud and excited to share it with you on Saturday, May 15th (tomorrow)!

Being in MGC has taken me out of my comfort zone in many ways: learning songs by ear instead of with sheet music, trying different vocal techniques, having to move!! – and for this concert, another first: singing into a microphone. I love it all and I especially love the people I’ve met.

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop! will be streamed May 15th at 8pm Eastern time (Greenwich-5) but will remain available for another 48 hours. Tickets are $20 CDN tax included. I understand that money is tight for some people right now, so no pressure and no guilt if that is the case. I do feel confident that those who purchase tickets will feel they got their money’s worth. When you buy a ticket online you will be sent a unique link to watch the concert. Here is a short video from one of our concerts back when live audiences were a thing – as they will be again! Find ticket info at montrealgospelchoir.com

Amy

P.S. Our director, Carol, will be on All in a Weekend with Ainslie MacLellan tomorrow morning at 8:30 on CBC radio.



Music in times of solitude

How often have we said that these are such strange times? Or that we have to adapt? 

Musicians spend a lot of time alone practicing, but rehearsals and performances include all kinds of interactions. Take away the performance of music and the intense camaraderie of making music with others – whether in a concert or Christmas Carol service – and the musical equation simply collapses. It’s been lonely, I must say, and somehow this latest lock up has felt more barren than the previous ones.

We turn to recordings to fill the void, and although they in no way replace live performances, they have a way of almost implying the presence of an audience.

In just one month, we will mark the beginning of Lent. Nearly one year ago, I shared and wrote about pieces of music every day during Holy Week. One year!

I enjoyed that experience. It made me feel connected to friends at SouthWest through the shared experience of music I love.

So lets make a date. A music date. Once or twice a week, with Amy’s help, I’ll send out my music selections, with a bit of a story attached. And we’ll make it a little more interactive this time; comments, suggestions and thoughts not only welcome, but expected!

See you next week.

Stay tuned…

Sarah

Remember That Men's Choir from the 50s?

I shared this photo in a post about music back in October 2019. I had found it in our archives (a fancy name for the unlabeled boxes of papers and photos that had been lugged back to the church when the Mission closed earlier that year). The picture was identified as “Men’s Club Choir, 1954” but the individuals’ names were not given. At the time I obtained a few names by posting the photo on the Crawford Park Kids Facebook page, and I shared what I learned with you.

Then last spring, a member of the Crawford Park Kids group, Andrew Smith, posted a copy of the same photo that he had found while engaging in a popular lockdown activity: going through stuff in one’s closets. His copy had all the names! My favorite discovery is that the sweet-faced young man kneeling at left is Harold Grace, who appears approximately a quarter century later in another post on this blog.

There’s a good chance Len Storey was the photographer.

Back row: Rev. A.E. Jones, Bill Metherell, Eric Humphrey, Arnold MacInnis, Marvin Smith, Randy West, Herb Fleet, Murray Beesley, Jim Hutchinson.
Front row: Harold Grace, George Gray, Bill Morgan, Alan Boyle, Bill Bryce.

Christmas Eve Service 2020

Filmed live at SouthWest on December 24th at 4PM.

Merry Little Christmases

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas has long been my favorite Christmas song. This year, it has special meaning.

It was originally performed by Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis, a nostalgic movie musical set near the turn of the last century, and there have been many many covers of it since then. Legend has it that Frank Sinatra asked lyricist Hugh Martin for a few revisions when he wanted to record the song for a Christmas album in 1957 but found the original lyrics, well, a tad glum. Most of us have been singing these slightly more upbeat lyrics ever since.

When Judy (as Esther Smith) sings it to Margaret O’Brien, who plays her little sister, it is Christmas Eve; the Smith family has been thrown into turmoil by their father’s announcement that he will be relocating them all to New York right after the holidays.  This comes at least three-quarters of the way into a film in which all anyone can talk about is the World’s Fair which is to open in their “home town” the following spring. Esther’s St. Louis is a charming place full of horse-drawn carriages, clanging trolley cars and adorable boys-next-door. She and her siblings are devastated at having to leave, feeling that their lives will never be the same again.

It’s no accident that this song (original version) was first sung in a film released in November, 1944, when many families were separated by the war, and had been for some time. I can’t quite believe how appropriate they are for this current Christmas when many of us will forgo gathering with friends and loved ones because of the pandemic.  Our celebrations are likely to be much “littler” than we would like.

The original lyrics are sad and wistful, acknowledging – unusual for a seasonal ditty - that we have troubles, that we may not feel okay. But they also remind us that things won’t always be as they are. They encourage us to just hold on a little longer:

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yule tide gay
Next year all our troubles will be miles away

Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Will be near to us once more

Someday soon, we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

- Amy

Music Notes: Autumn Leaves

The sky was lit up with brilliant sunshine yesterday, and the dazzling colours of an autumn unleashed. Stand back in wonder, nature called out; be thankful for the chance to behold such beauty, a beauty that is so achingly familiar and forever astonishing.

It is so fleeting, and maybe that is why it always hurts a little. We are bathed in these glorious golds, reds and orange hues for such a short time; nature’s poignant reminder that so much life will pass before us before we behold it once more.

That sounds sad, and I don’t mean it to. Introspection is thoughtful, and, if these days, our thoughts wander more often to those people we miss, or concerns both global and at home, that is simply a reflection of the times we are living through.

There is a song, there is always music! This song – Autumn Leaves – ran through my mind the other day as I was walking through the field, with a delicate mist at my feet, as the sun made its final stretch to daylight. It’s a beautiful song, and so many musicians have made it their own. I prefer the simpler versions, and although jazz greats, such as our own Oscar Peterson, have recorded spellbinding instrumental riffs and variations on the tune, there are a few singers who bring to it the beauty and the poignancy I treasure.

‘Les feuilles mortes’ was composed in Paris by Joseph Kosma just after the Second World War, with lyrics by Jacques Prévert. Yves Montand sang it many times, but it is this later version, many years after his first interpretation in 1950, that I like the most. You can hear how much he has lived through the song. Memories and experience are the cushion that truly great musicians bring to the performance of a piece of music that has accompanied them throughout their lives. It is not to say that great musicians can’t be young! And once in a while, we’ll talk about a young musician or singer with an old soul!

Here is Yves Montand in a live recording:

Johnny Mercer wrote the English lyrics just a few years later, and the song was made hugely popular by Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Doris Day, and my favourite, Nat King Cole.

There are a few recordings of Eva Cassidy singing Autumn Leaves. She was and will forever be young, a beautiful singer who died far too soon. An old soul? She has a haunting voice, and I haven’t been able to decide which version to include – the video with the London Symphony Orchestra, or the live recording where she accompanies herself on guitar. So here are both, in that order:

Ah, the seasons of life.

In a few days, two to be exact, Steve Scales will be interred. The funeral originally planned for the same day was postponed to next spring, not cancelled. If you’d like to pause for a moment at 11 am on Saturday, however, that would be a fine thing.

Till soon, very soon,

Sarah

 LES FEUILLES MORTES
paroles: Jacques Prévert
musique: Joseph Kosma

Oh! je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes
Des jours heureux où nous étions amis
En ce temps-là la vie était plus belle,
Et le soleil plus brûlant qu'aujourd'hui
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle
Tu vois, je n'ai pas oublié...
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle,
Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi
Et le vent du nord les emporte
Dans la nuit froide de l'oubli.
Tu vois, je n'ai pas oublié
La chanson que tu me chantais.

REFRAIN:
C'est une chanson qui nous ressemble
Toi, tu m'aimais et je t'aimais
Et nous vivions tous deux ensemble
Toi qui m'aimais, moi qui t'aimais
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment
Tout doucement, sans faire de bruit
Et la mer efface sur le sable
Les pas des amants désunis.

Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle,
Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi
Mais mon amour silencieux et fidèle
Sourit toujours et remercie la vie
Je t'aimais tant, tu étais si jolie,
Comment veux-tu que je t'oublie?
En ce temps-là, la vie était plus belle
Et le soleil plus brûlant qu'aujourd'hui
Tu étais ma plus douce amie
Mais je n'ai que faire des regrets
Et la chanson que tu chantais
Toujours, toujours je l'entendrai!

REFRAIN

Translation
AUTUMN LEAVES (Johnny Mercer)

The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sunburnt hands I used to hold
Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall
Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall