Holy Week is imminent! One of the musical highlights you can look forward to is an intense choral anthem for Palm Sunday’s 9am service and Good Friday’s 7pm service by the Canadian composer Sarah MacDonald

Bittersweet and melancholy describes much of the music for Sunday, to reflect the gospel text of the death and raising of Lazarus.

Sunday’s music includes two arrangements of African-American Spirituals as well as a folk hymn from the American South.

Sunday’s 9am and 11am services will feature splendid organ and/or choral works by English composers Herbert Howells (1892-1983), C. Hubert H. Parry (1848-1918), and William Byrd (c. 1540-1623), as well as French organist Jeanne Demessieux (1921-1968).

As we return to two separate bulletins for the 9am and 11am services in Lent, our service music also changes for the season. Sundays in Lent will feature settings by two of the most influential African-American Episcopal music leaders working today.

This Sunday’s offertory anthem, Gwyneth Walker’s Dazzling as the Sun, has a transfiguration text by Delores Dufner of the Sisters of the Order of St. Benedict in Minnesota.

This Sunday, the choir will sing an anthem by Moses Hogan who is best known for revitalizing the Negro spiritual tradition.

We have another musical event coming up at St. Michael’s on Saturday, February 11, at 3:00 pm. Ping & Woof Opera presents the vocal recital “Songs for My Valentine” with husband and wife singers Jocelyn Claire Thomas (soprano) and Zachary Lenox (baritone), accompanied by Hannah Brewer on piano.

Sunday’s gospel states “You are the light of the world.” We celebrate this light through song with hymns such as Gather Us In