The St. Michael’s Singers will highlight our celebration of St. Francis Day with Margaret Bonds’ St. Francis’ Prayer at 9am on Sunday. Bonds (1913-1972) was a good friend of Langston Hughes, studied piano and composition with Florence Price and William Dawson, and is known for her arrangements of African-American spirituals as well as her non-idiomatic choral music. She was also a concert pianist and one of the first Black composers and performers to achieve recognition in the United States. Her setting of St. Francis’ famous words, “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace,” is a new acquisition to our choral library, and one which we hope might become a new favorite with its lush piano accompaniment and slightly jazzy harmonies.

At 11am, meanwhile, the Saints & Singers lean into the Season of Creation with a song by Malcolm Guite and Ian Stephens. “Everything holds together, / From stars that pierce the dark like living sparks, / To secret seeds that open every spring.”