Our darkness is never darkness in your sight:
the deepest night is clear as the day light.
Las tinieblas no son tinieblas; en tu luz
la mas oscura noche es de día.
Reflection 9.13.12
09/13/2012
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Finding your voice + Encontrando su voz: 5.20-6.10.12
05/08/2012Finding Your Voice –
Singing with Confidence!
Part of the beauty of Immanuel is the tapestry of varied and unique souls gathered to love God and each other. Let us make a joyful noise to God by weaving our varied and unique voices!
In the Finding Your Voice classes, Music Director Ed Murray will lead us toward EVEN MORE meaningful worship of God. People of all ages are welcome, regardless of skill level or experience.
Come to a FOUR week, bilingual class beginning May 20th from 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. in Chichester Chapel
Want to know more? – Ask Ed! 213.389.3191 x110 or ed@immanuelpres.org
Encontrando su Voz –
¡Cantando con Confianza!
Parte de la belleza de Immanuel es la tapicería de varias almas únicas unidas a amar a Dios y uno al otro. ¡Vamos hacer alegre ruido a Dios por medio de tejar nuestras voces únicas!
En las clases de Encontrando su Voz, Ed Murray el Director de Música, nos dirigirá hacia HASTA UN MAS significativo servicio de Dios. Personas de todas edades son bienvenidas, a pesar de nivel de habilidad o experiencia.
Vengan a una clase bilingüe de CUATRO semanas comenzando 20 de mayo, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. en la Capilla Chichester
¿Necesita más Información? – ¡Pregunte Ed! 213.389.3191 x110 o ed@immanuelpres.org
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Musical Reflection for World AIDS Day: 12.1.11
12/01/2011Ed Murray plays the Immanuel organ. Composer Calvin Hampton died of AIDS in 1984.
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Our Lenten Shalom Song + Nuestra canción Shalom de la Cuaresma
03/26/2011
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Virgie’s hymn
02/07/2011Our creative and multi-talented intern Virgie Pickering preached on January 30 (sermon audio will be posted in due course). Not only that, but for the occasion, she wrote a new hymn text (her first effort in the genre). We sang it with great pleasure and share it here with Virgie’s permission. You can sing along to the tune BEACH SPRING with the YouTube below!
1. Love revealed as God incarnate
Love is this: he gave his life
could not bear to see us suffer,
taking on our pain and strife.
Insuppressible compassion
reaching out to give us life!
In a world by sin fragmented
Love cannot stand idly by.
2. Many waters cannot quench it
it is stronger than the grave;
changing cowards into heroes
making hearts, once fearful, brave.
Love unbounded, Love unfailing,
open wide and clear our eyes.
Wakened to the needs around us
love cannot stand idly by.
3. Love cannot keep still and silent
burning in our bones as fire
speaking truth to those in power
what God’s righteousness requires.
Love seeks justice without yielding
Hears the helpless as they cry.
In a world of greed and warfare,
Love cannot stand idly by.
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Snapshots: Mothers Day Music + Música para el dia de las Madres 5.9.10
05/11/2010Starring violinist Sam Pullen with the English music team, with soprano Elyse Marchant (performing a Bach aria Sam had first played with his mother) and with Mariachi Sur de California at the convivio fiesta. Photos “borrowed” from Sam’s Facebook page. Click on an image for a larger view.
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Adventures in Liturgy: Exotic Instruments
01/13/2010Adventures in Liturgy by Edward Murray, Music Director
Well, Christmas is well and truly over for 2009, but I wanted to take a belated opportunity to comment on the hurdy-gurdy and musette, the unusual instruments we heard in our Christmas Eve service.
The structure and history of the hurdy-gurdy are difficult to describe in only a few words, but this paragraph from a Wikipedia article is a pretty good summary. For much more history and information, click here.
The hurdy gurdy or hurdy-gurdy (also known as a wheel fiddle) is a stringed musical instrument in which the strings are sounded by means of a rosined wheel which the strings of the instrument pass over. This wheel, turned with a crank, functions much like a violin bow, making the instrument essentially a mechanical violin. Melodies are played on a keyboard that presses tangents (small wedges, usually made of wood) against one or more of these strings to change their pitch. Like most other acoustic string instruments, it has a soundboard to make the vibration of the strings audible.
Most hurdy gurdies have multiple “drone strings” which provide a constant pitch accompaniment to the melody, resulting in a sound similar to that of bagpipes. For this reason, the hurdy gurdy is often used interchangeably with or along with bagpipes, particularly in French and contemporary Hungarian folk music.
The musette is a small instrument of the bagpipe family. For a full description and history, click here.
The hurdy-gurdy was played by Curtis Berak. Curtis has had a passion for the hurdy gurdy (vielle a roue) for over 20 years, performing, restoring, and collecting antique hurdy gurdys from the early 18th C., amassing the largest collection in America. He has made a concert tour of Ireland, and played for film soundtracks of “Polar Express”, “The Three Musketeers”, “The Craft”, “The Tie That Binds”, and “Newsies”. Curtis is an internationally recognized professional harpsichord builder, and also restores antique fortepianos.
The musette was played by Bruce Teter. Bruce and Curtis have performed far and wide. Bruce describes one memorable outreach performance for the Orangewood Center for Children in Orange County: We played for a small group of teenage girls. We announced the next piece as a dance from the Renaissance and described people dancing at a country dance. I think the girls had a lot of pent-up energy with no way to “let go,” so they took this opportunity to get up and dance around the classroom. The teacher was a bit shocked by this unruly behavior but didn’t try too hard to control the situation. Perhaps the unusual droning instruments (hurdy-gurdy and bagpipes) that Curtis Berak and I play, facilitate the ability to surrender to the music and let it move you: this was the principle of the Tarantella dance. This shows how music can act as an impetus for emotional expression, especially for disadvantaged children whose heightened emotional state has few, if any, arenas for expression.
Curtis and Bruce playing on Christmas Eve
Musette
Part of Curtis's collection of hurdy-gurdys
Click here for a video of Curtis and Bruce introducing several interesting instruments, including the hurdy-gurdy and musette.
Stay tuned for more…
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Adventures in Liturgy: One last carol, Shirley Murray, I-to Loh
01/04/2010Adventures in Liturgy by Edward Murray, Music Director.
Well, the season of Christmas is almost over, but I wanted to look back at one unusual carol whose background is particularly interesting. It’s not, to be sure, a cheerful “feel good” sort of a carol, but it is thought provoking and beautiful in its own way. It’s called Hunger Carol, and Elyse sang it as a solo on the Second Sunday of Advent, December 6.
The words are by one of my favorite hymn writers, New Zealander Shirley Erena Murray (no relation that I know of). Murray’s writing is always artful and economical, and at its best (as in this case) can pack quite a punch. It addresses a somber side to Christmas consumerism in the context of Jesus’s own birth. The subject of hunger is of particular relevance to Immanuel, thanks to the fine work of our Food Pantry. Here is the text; note the particularly powerful image in the last verse:
Child of joy and peace
born to every race‚
By your star, the wise will know you,
East and West their homage show you,
Look into your face
Child of joy and peace.Born among the poor
on a stable floor,
Cold and raw, you know our hunger,
weep our tears and share our anger,
Yet you tell us more,
born among the poor.Every child needs bread
till the world is fed:
You give bread, your hands enable,
all to gather round one table,
Christmas must be shared,
every child needs bread.Son of poverty
prod us till we see
Self-concerned, how we deny you,
by our greed we crucify you
On a Christmas tree,
Son of poverty.
The musical setting Elyse sang was by Taiwanese composer I-to Loh. Through his work with the World Council of Churches and other interfaith organizations, I-to Loh is probably the best-known Asian church musician and composer in the west today. In the small world department, he did his doctorate at UCLA where he was friends with Rev. John Zehnder, father of Tim and Tom. His tune is entitled Smokey Mountain, the name of a mountain of garbage in Manila, the Philippines, where people lived and searched for food. Loh lived in the Philippines in 1982 and 1994 when he taught at the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music (AILM) in Manila; he was there as a missionary to the Philippines under the sponsorship of the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church in the United States (truly an international effort!). Loh has remarked that “if all my hymns are forgotten but this one, I’ll be happy.” For this piece, Loh has adopted a pseudo-Indonesian gamelan style which is highly evocative. Click here to hear the music.
Stay tuned for more and happy New Year!
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Adventures in Liturgy: The “O” Antiphons of Advent; Kathleen Norris
12/17/2009Adventures in Liturgy by Edward Murray (Music Director)
Most of us are probably acquainted with the famous Advent hymn O come, o come, Emmanuel. Fewer are likely to have sung all of the seven verses of the hymn, as we did during the bilingual service of healing on November 29, the first Sunday of Advent. Although hardly surprising, this is a pity, as they are very beautiful. They are based on an ancient series of Latin liturgical responses known as the “O” Antiphons.
In the Latin monastic liturgy, the Magnificat (Song of Mary) is sung daily at Vespers. A short response, known as an antiphon, is sung at the beginning and end of the Magnificat. The Magnificat antiphons for December 17-23 form a series, each of which contains a different name for the coming Christ, and each beginning with the word “O”, hence their popular title.
There is something a bit mysterious and very compelling about them:
December 17: O wisdom, coming forth from the Most High, filling all creation and reigning to the ends of the earth; come and teach us the way of truth.
December 18: O Lord of Lords, and ruler of the House of Israel, you appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush, and gave him the law on Sinai: come with your outstretched arm and
December 19: O root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the nations; kings will keep silence before you for whom the nations long; come and save us and delay no longer.
December 20: O key of David and scepter of the House of Israel; you open and none can shut; you shut and none can open: come and free the captives from prison, and break down the walls of death.
December 21: O morning star, splendor of the light eternal and bright sun of righteousness: come and bring light to those who dwell in darkness and walk in the shadow of death.
December 22: O king of the nations, you alone can fulfill their desires: cornerstone, binding all together: come and save the creature you fashioned from the dust of the earth.
December 23: O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, hope of the nations and their savior: come and save us, O Lord our God.
In her wonderful book The Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris writes of the experience of singing one of the O Antiphons with the sisters at Mount St. Mary’s Brentwood campus here in Los Angeles. A vivid excerpt:
…one of the women asked if I’d like to first take a brief hike further up the mountain, past the convent and onto the fire road … Soon we could see, far below us, a small section of what she told me was the Santa Monica freeway. Then we left the traces of civilization behind … We never made it to the summit, because at one turn we encountered two coyotes, a male and a female. We stared at them, and they at us, and then they slipped away, down the hill. … I was overcome with the wonder of having come all the way from western South Dakota, via Minnesota, only to find myself alone with coyotes in Los Angeles…
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Adventures in Liturgy: A Jewish Song in Advent
12/10/2009A Jewish Song in Advent – by Edward Murray (music director)
On the first Sunday of Advent, the music team sang a very beautiful and interesting Jewish song from the Sephardic tradition in its original language (no surprise) called Cuando el Rey Nimrod. Besides the obvious attractions of a very appealing (and somewhat exotic) melody, the words of the song and some of its history contribute to its meaningfulness to us today.
First, a little history. The Sephardim are the branch of Judaism with roots in Spain and Portugal. Prior to their expulsion in 1492, the Spanish Jews were part of a remarkable culture in which Christians, Jews and Muslims lived together peacefully and prosperously, especially under the rule of the 13th century King Alfonso el Sabio (the Wise). They developed a language called Ladino which is mainly Spanish, with many Hebrew words mixed in (and later many words from the various places the Jews resettled). Our performance was in Ladino and would probably have been quite understandable to our Spanish-speakers.
Like many songs from folk traditions (and especially from Iberia), the words are a bit quirky:
When King Nimrod went out to the country
he looked at the sky and the constellations.
He saw a holy light above the Jewish quarters;
that Abraham, our father, will be born.
Our father, Abraham, beloved father,
blessed Father, light of Israel.Let us greet now the newborn father,
may he be blessed, this newborn one.
The prophet Elijah has appeared to us,
and we shall give praises to the true one.
Our father, Abraham …Let’s greet the godfather and also the moel*,
for because of his virtue the Messiah comes to us
and to redeem all Israel.
Surely we give praise to the true one.
Our father, Abraham …
*Moel: Jewish official who performs the rite of circumcision.
Note that Abraham—the first Jew—is to be born in the Jewish quarter! The “holy light” above his birthplace is reminiscent of the biblical account of the birth of Jesus, and in the song, Abraham has become the Messiah, the redeemer of Israel, not unlike a common view of Jesus. Much in the song’s lyrics has to do with a sort of conflation of past, present and future, as does our annual observance of the Advent season. “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”
Stay tuned for further adventures in liturgy …
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