Wedding Schedule Updated

For the 2019-20 St. Mary's Cathedral Choir year, we have already eight weddings on the schedule. You can view the wedding schedule here, and the wedding group assignment here.

Fall Schedule

Dear Choir!

I hope everyone is having a restful summer. This coming Thursday is the Dormition of the Theotokos. I hope as many of you that can will come to Vespers (6:15 pm on Wednesday) and Liturgy (9 am on Thursday) for the feast. 

This coming Sunday, August 18, the male choir will sing divine liturgy at the cathedral. So, sopranos and altos, make note: you have this Sunday off from singing. Of course, there's also the 8:30 am liturgy at the cemetery chapel, which you (female singers) are most welcome to attend and sing for. 

Please note!!! Saturday, August 31 we have a wedding at 3 PM (not at 2 PM like originally scheduled). Group 1 is scheduled to sing. 

Our rehearsals resume on Wednesday, September 4. 

Things to have on your choir calendar for this upcoming fall and into winter: 

1. Wednesday, September 4. Rehearsals resume.

2. Saturday, September 28. Taste of Northeast Concert, 3:30 pm.

3. Saturday, October 5, 9 am. Byzantine Festival Workshop, 9 am.

4. Sunday, October 6, 5 pm. Byzantine Festival Concert 5 pm.

5. Wednesday, October 9. Annual Choir Meeting, 7 pm.

6. Saturday, December 7. Advent Concert 7 pm. 

7. Sunday, December 8. Heirarchical Divine Liturgy 8:30 am. 

8. Friday, December 13. TMORA Concert, time TBD. 

This coming November the Basilica Choir and MEOCCA Choir are collaborating to sing the Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil. If you have interest in this (and I encourage you to, especially if you've never sung this work before) please contact Sara Ann Pogorely (saraann.pogorely@gmail.com).

Finally, about our recording this past spring. Just this past Friday I received from Doug, our recording engineer, the edited and mixed audio files. I'll still have go through these with a fine-tooth comb, but I can say from what I listened to everything sounds wonderful. There'll more information on this in the near future. 

Deacon Gregory

Male Choir Liturgy

On Sunday August 18 the male choir will sing the Divine Liturgy at the cathedral. Male singers - if you'd like to sing, please attend the special rehearsal on Wednesday, August 14 after Great Vespers (approximately 7 pm). Female singers - you have the Sunday off from singing. Or, of course, you're more than welcome to sing at the 8:30 am liturgy at the cemetery chapel that morning. Tanya Dmowski would be happy to have you I'm sure!

Male singers. It's really important that you attend rehearsal on Wednesday, August 14. There are a few new pieces that we'll be introducing into the male repertoire for liturgy. Also, I ask that everyone arrive at the cathedral at 8:30 am on Sunday, August 18 to warmup and re-acquaint ourselves with some of the new repertoire. I'm very much looking forward to directing you!

Happy July

Happy July! I hope summer is going well for everyone. The sight singing class on Wednesdays is moving right along and there are about ten people or so attending. We are learning a lot and having fund doing it. We'll continue this Wednesday focusing (hopefully) more on simply sight reading through music. Please consider coming!

On Sunday, August 18 the male choir will sing at the cathedral. In preparation for this liturgy we'll have one rehearsal on Wednesday, August 14 after Great Vespers. So, male singers, please make note of this! Female singers, enjoy the Sunday off.

Below is a reflection on the potential positive effects of music on people who struggle with stress, addiction, mental instability, and music's benefits on contemporary society at large. Maria Sheehan from St. Tikhon's Seminary really raises some interesting points and it's worth reading.

We live in a VERY unusual time, in terms of the human experience. 

For millennia, even as civilized humans, we were hungry, and we were naked, and we were oppressed (or imprisoned). But for most modern societies those are no longer our major obstacles. Materially, modern societies are extremely wealthy. Even the poorest Americans are radically more privileged than any other humans at any other time in human history. Things we take for granted—clean water, sanitation, indoor climate control, basic medical care, basic human rights, a steady (even indulgent) food supply, refrigeration, agricultural and manufacturing machinery, comfortable and fast transportation, sufficient artificial lighting, even window screens and glass—all would be unimaginable luxuries to humans from any other age, even as recently as the nineteenth century. Of course, poverty and homelessness are still present and as terrible as they ever were, the changes in the practical lifestyle of the average westerner in the past two hundred years have been dramatically for the better. And that means that those historical problems of humanity aren’t, in a sense, our problems. So what actually are our problems? 

Depression affects more than one in ten adults in the United States in any given year and is the primary reason why someone dies of suicide about every 13 minutes— over 41,000 people annually. 

Isolation is statistically as significant a risk factor for early death as obesity and smoking. Socially isolated children have significantly poorer health in adulthood. If you’re isolated, you’re twice as likely to die prematurely than someone with an active social life.   

One in every 10 Americans over the age of 12 suffers addiction to alcohol or drugs (that’s roughly equal to the entire population of Texas). Drug overdose deaths have more than tripled since 1990. For nearly all drug addicts, their addictions began before they were 18 years old. This is to say nothing of the more “benign” kinds of addictions, such as screen addiction, pornography, gambling, and countless others. 

Anxiety disorders are the most common kinds of mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults—that’s nearly one out of every 5 Americans in any given year. Panic attacks, PTSD, phobias, social anxiety, and OCD are so common that most of us have someone in our lives who we know suffers from one (or several) of these disorders. 

Purposelessness—Power, pleasure, and pride are the assumed motivating forces behind all advertising and all political and economic movements. Advertising and political discourse tend to get the most media airtime in western culture, and most of us are influenced pretty heavily by those messages. But they pit us against one another, leaving us isolated, suspicious, and dissatisfied. So what can we Christians possibly do to minister to these afflictions? 

It’s interesting that so much of Orthodox Christian worship involves singing. We have to sing in church in order to do our services. But, as is so often true of God’s commandments, it’s not an arbitrary order that we are expected to obey for the sake of obedience. Obeying the commandment serves to actually HEAL us. Music making—and singing in particular—is actually physically, mentally and socially healing. 

The scientific data supporting the powerful physical therapeutic effectiveness of music is compelling. Music stimulates parts of the brain responsible for memory. Music can reduce blood pressure and slow heart rate. Singers’ heartbeats physically align as they sing together. Music can calm the parts of the brain that manage anxiety and stress, and significantly lower anxiety levels. Music making is a highly effective treatment for depression, and is able to improve a patient’s condition without the nearly universal side effects experienced with medications. Music triggers the brain to release dopamine (the same feel-good chemical that opiates, alcohol, nicotine, amphetamines, and cocaine stimulate the brain to produce). And as a psychological and social medicine, music turns out to be a powerhouse as well. Singing triggers the release of oxytocin in the brain, the hormone associated with intimate bonding and affection, and creates a powerful sense of intimacy between musicians. 

Musicians often (and often easily) experience flow state, and ensemble music-making triggers a social flow state in which many people can share the same ecstatic flow experience, and a subsequently deep connection. Ensemble music making requires a level of cooperation that serves to build social bonds and trust, characteristics essential to a stable society. Listening to music increases empathy and strengthens the social skill of imagining what someone else is thinking. Even just listening to music together—let alone making music together—increases social cohesion in families and peer groups. 

Singing can strengthen, inspire, and give meaning to people in even the darkest of circumstances. (Just consider how my friend wanted to stay in prison, of all places, so that he could sing in a choir.) It can actually heal the body at the same time as it heals the soul. I have to admit that I chose a career in music because I need this medicine as often as I can get it. And all of us suffer, to some degree, from these modern afflictions, even if we’re not carrying the cross of a chronic diagnosis. I think we all need this medicine.   

What if we started offering to the world our singing, our music—the actual medium of our worship— as a carefully crafted medicine for the ills that millions and millions are suffering? What if we realized that God made us able to be addicted not by some cosmic mistake, but so that we would want to come back again and again to this medicine, to this beauty? What heights of joy might we create for the world—and for ourselves, who need it, too—if we determined to make our music as good as it could be, to learn as much as we could, to improve as much as possible, and to keep doing it, to the Glory of God and to comfort His people—all people? And what if everyone began to know that the Orthodox Church was a source for this healing, and that beyond it lies an even greater healing? What then?

(to be continued)

- Talia Maria Sheehan

blogs.ancientfaith.com/musicstand/the-least-of-these-my-brethren/

Wedding this Saturday, May 11

Choir, please remember that tomorrow (Saturday, May 11) there is a wedding at the cathedral. Nathaniel Kostick is marring Emily Redding. The wedding begins at 2 pm, but please arrive no later than 1:45. As is usually the case, we will sing a few things before the wedding.

We wish Nathaniel and Emily many years!

Please don't forget that this coming Wednesday we have our last recording date with Doug Geston. Please arrive at the cathedral at 6:30 pm.

Christ is Risen!

I wish all of you a wonderful and blessed Pascha! This past week's services were all so splendid. Thank you for all your hard work, voices and love for the liturgical services.

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
Христосъ воскресе!
Хрістос воскрес!
Hristos a înviat! 
Kristus vstal z mŕtvych!
Chrystus zmartwychwstał!
ქრისტე აღსდგა!
Kristus er oppstanden!
Kristus är uppstånden! 
Christus ist auferstanden!
Kristus augšāmcēlies!
Feltámadt Krisztus!
ハリストス復活！

Also, there are many new videos on our Youtube channel that Emily Pilacinski has posted. Please have a look when you get a chance!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZETfaMpsHKv8PAceNhfNoA

 

Rehearsals till Pascha and New Recording Date

Tomorrow will be our second of four rehearsals before Pascha. Even though very few new pieces of music will be introduced for Holy Week and Pascha, it goes without saying that the next three rehearsals are very important. In my experience, one of the biggest challenges for our choir during these long services is focus and endurance. These remaining rehearsals will not only prepare us as to sustain a prayerful and joyful atmosphere, but help keep our focus and stamina. If you were not able to come to last week's rehearsal, the next three rehearsals are mandatory for you if you wish to sing at the midnight service. If you are unable to attend a rehearsal, please let me know.

Next three rehearsals:

Wednesday, April 10, 7 PM
Wednesday, April 17, 7 PM
Tuesday, April 23, 7 PM

As I mentioned previously, our last recording on March 30 went extremely well. The more I listen to what we produced the more I'm impressed. Thank you for all your work thus far.

There are however a few things that we've yet to record: a couple stichera for the feast, as well as Kastalsky's Open Unto Us. Plus, there are couple things that I'd like to have another take with. So, after talking with Doug Geston, we've decided to do another recording on Wednesday, May 15 at 7 pm. May is a rather busy month for Doug with college and school concerts, so this was the only Wednesday that he had available. This recording should not be very long (well, at least shorter than our other ones). I'd imagine we'd be done no later than 9 pm.

Again, thank you for all your hard work thus far!