I wish all of you a very happy new year. It sounds trite to say, but it really was a pleasure leading all of you in liturgical worship and concerts throughout 2018. I hope that 2019 brings many new and wonderful things for St. Mary's Cathedral Choir.
Thank you to all for your very hard and devoted work through the month of December. It's not necessary to recount all what happened, but it was an extremely busy month with services, concerts, caroling, and a visit from Bishop Paul. Everything went very well, exceeding all my expectations. Thank you!
At the end of 2017, the choir voted to do a recording project sometime the end of 2018 or the beginning of 2019. This past September, I surveyed the choir to see when would be the best time to record and what singers would like to record. Out of all those who responded to the survey (only about 65 percent or so) the overwhelming majority wanted to record music and special melodies for our cathedral's feast day on October 1, the Protection on the Theotokos. Recording dates have been reserved with the recording engineer from our 2016 recording, Doug Geston. We are scheduled to record on the following days:
Saturday, March 2 at 1 pm
Wednesday, March 6 at 7 pm
Saturday, March 9 at 9 am
Beginning with tomorrow's rehearsal (January 2), we have nine rehearsals till our first recording session on March 2. We'll have to use these rehearsal times wisely. Many things that I hope to record we've already learned or have rehearsed in the passed (our feast day's kontakion arranged by Resa, canon heirmoi for the Theotokos composed by Kurt Sander, many pieces composed/arranged by then Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, etc.). But, there are things (time permitting) that I'd like to include which we still haven't learned such as: various arrangements of our cathedral's troparion and kontakion, magnification, and magnificat. The possible selections seem almost endless.
I think I should remind you that the choir voted to make this recording. Please make it a priority and arranged your schedule accordingly so that we can have the best result possible.
Look forward to seeing you all at tomorrow evenings rehearsal.
