by admin on March 4, 2011
The choir will bookend the season of Lent by singing a lovely piece of music titled “In All Our Grief and Fear We Turn to You” on Ash Wednesday and again on Good Friday. The song is a near-perfect musical presentation of Law and Gospel. The first two stanzas offer an unflinching look at our sinfulness, but the third stanza – ah, there comes the Gospel! The congregation will hear the men’s voices weave a familiar Lenten hymn into the contemporary melody sung by the women.
Since last fall we have been practicing a song for Palm Sunday titled “Hosanna to Our King!” The accompanist’s part is so independent of the vocals that it’s almost like a fifth vocal section. What a great job our accompanist does! The piece opens with the words of the crowd that welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday, shifts to Psalm 24 in the middle section, and then – in a spectacular key change just before the final stanza – ends with a rousing “Hosanna to our King!” It’s a very challenging piece and the congregation can expect to hear it again next Advent. It’s too good a piece to sing only once a year.
For Easter, the choir will invite the congregation to join them in singing two rollicking Easter songs from Christian Worship Supplement, one melody of French origin and the other from Africa. We picked these two “international” pieces to remind all of us that Jesus’s Easter triumph offers all people in the world a victory over sin, death, and the devil!
In between the high festivals in Lent and Easter, the choir hopes also to contribute to the liturgy and the psalmody of the service. All in all, we have an ambitious practice and performance schedule planned for the next few weeks, but commemorating our Savior’s suffering, death, and resurrection in music is an honor for us and we do it joyfully!
by admin on November 21, 2010
The role of the choir at Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church is meaningful and very much in keeping with confessional Lutheranism. Prior to Martin Luther’s time, the congregation did not participate in singing; the choir was an “official” and elite arm of the church’s leadership. The Protestant Reformation changed that, however, and besides encouraging all people to read the Scriptures also encouraged all believers to sing—and not in Latin but in their own common language! A radical change! The first people’s hymnal of 1524 had eight hymns in it, and because the printed word was expensive in those times, that hymnal first went to the church choir—but only so the choir could teach the hymns to the congregation.
At Our Savior we try to maintain the choir’s teaching role. We may introduce a new hymn to the congregation, highlight the season of the church year or the Scripture readings with a special anthem, or enrich the liturgy by taking an active part in the responses. We have no desire to entertain or to take on the role of a “show choir.” We seek only to encourage the congregation in worship so that all glory goes to God.
Generally, the choir rehearses for about 45 minutes after church every Sunday except the third Sunday of the month. We have a great group of about fifteen people with varying degrees of musical abilities. Some can solo and others are still learning how to read music on the page. No matter. The Our Savior choir is for anyone of high school age or older that loves to sing, and it’s a true “labor of love”—love for music, love for our church family, but especially love for our Savior God. We are working on our Advent and Christmas songs now and after the new year we’ll be starting our Lenten, Holy Week, and Easter numbers. Please join us at any rehearsal. We love welcoming new members!
