Grace Cathedral
We are excited to welcome back our Choir of Men and Boys to say farewell to Jim Hodges’ magnificent sculpture Unearthed on September 8 at 3 p.m. The program will include requests made by the artist such as Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices, as well as Jonathan Harvey’s stirring and ethereal work, The Tree, and Gerald Near’s arrangement of an English Folk Song, set to the words, Christ hath a garden.
RSVP for the concert here.
Check out the new playlist on our Grace Cathedral Music Spotify channel to enjoy a taste of the choir’s upcoming performances in the cathedral.
Entitled Requiems 2017, the playlist contains portions of the two Requiems that we are singing in the next several weeks. This Thursday, we’ll sing Psalm 121, I will lift up my eyes, from the Requiem of Herbert Howells. Howells wrote this Requiem to the memory of his only son, Michael, who died of polio in 1935 at the age of nine.
This week we also celebrate with the joyful music of Monteverdi, the important composer from St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice, whose music helped usher in the Baroque period. Included, in addition, is the great Mozart Requiem, which the choir will sing at 11 a.m. on Sunday, November 12. As you listen, note some of the similarities between Monteverdi and Mozart. Surely the latter had heard the former’s music!
Hear the choirs of Grace Cathedral at the following services:
26 October, Thursday
5:15 p.m. Choral Evensong • Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys
Canticles: Magnificat & Nunc dimittis “Collegium Regale” – Herbert Howells
The Responses: William Smith
Psalm 91 – H. Walford Davies
Psalm 121 from Requiem – Herbert Howells
Hymns: 38, 483
29 October, Sunday
11 a.m. The Holy Eucharist • Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys
Service: Mass for four voices – Claudio Monteverdi
Introit: Psalm 91 – H. Walford Davies
Psalm 1 – Bruce Neswick
Beatus vir – Claudio Monteverdi
Cantate Domino – Claudio Monteverdi
Hymns: 505, 517, 609
3 p.m. Choral Evensong • Cathedral Camerata
Canticles: Magnificat & Nunc dimittis in A – Herbert Sumsion
The Responses: Benjamin Bachmann
Psalm 141 – Daniel Pinkham
Gentle words – Shaker tune
Hymns: 379, 665
See the complete list of music to be sung by the Choir of Men and Boys and Camerata for this season.
The Music Department is pleased to announce that Christopher Keady will be joining us as the new Assistant Director of Music. Christopher comes to us from Portland, Oregon via the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, where he is finishing his Master’s degree.
Christopher was born and raised in Eugene, Oregon, and via his father he is a dual US-UK citizen. Christopher grew up at a warm and familiar Presbyterian church in Eugene, and began singing in the choir there in high school. While in college at Lewis & Clark in Portland, Oregon, he sang in the choir at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and was an immediate Episcopal convert. Going to Yale to work on his Master’s degree was not only musically promising: he is a self-proclaimed nerd for architectural history, and Yale’s campus has wonderful buildings of all periods. He finds San Francisco just as exciting. Christopher and his husband Dan, who is a mental health counselor, have been married for two years and have two cats: Mr. Peters and Bina. They enjoy cooking for each other, camping and hiking, seeing movies and accumulating books and house-plants.
Christopher will be starting with us in July. Please say hello to Christopher and make him welcome as he begins his time with us.