“In a year where gathering must be more intentional and done more creatively than ever before, it is also more important that we find some way to do it."
The Great Advent Gathering
December 16, 2020
This week’s Touchstone is going to be a little different than most. I’m not really including a reading because I want to talk about the series of readings that we have every year beginning on December 17 (that will be tomorrow) and bringing us clear into Christmas. All of the readings are shown in the video and span the first chapters of both Matthew and Luke.
Each of these readings introduces different characters from the nativity stories. Each character represents a part of God‘s people and together they create a kind of checklist for us to look around and notice the different types of family, friends and community with whom we gather as we prepare for the celebration of Christmas.
But while there’s no reading, I’m actually going to include three different links for music. As we move into this holiday season I wanted to share with you part of a project that I was involved in almost 20 years ago. In 2003 I arranged 15 pieces of music for children’s choirs to sing as part of a Christmas album. This was for the benefit of “Seeds of Hope“, a charitable organization within our Archdiocese that helps socioeconomically challenged children have the ability to attend a Catholic school.
At that time I was just beginning to learn about music software and how to synthesize accompaniment tracks, orchestrations and even venturing into some electronics/pop sounds. I was certainly new to “orchestrating” in this new way. I think it has been particularly on my mind this year as I have had to learn so much about video production.
I created accompaniments and sent them to the choir teachers at each of the schools, and they worked diligently with their children’s choirs. Through the generosity of a donor we then met for three days at a sound studio here in Denver. Choir after choir, one after another, we recorded. Each group of students would come in well rehearsed and I would have about 30-45 minutes to talk to them, get them used to me directing them, and then recording. Watching them come into a professional studio with their eyes wide and be part of something a little bit larger than they imagined up to that point was one of the greatest experiences of my priesthood.
Luckily, the fresh beauty and joy of these student-voices keeps the ear from noticing (too much) the struggling “newbie’s” arrangements and instrumentation! At the end of those three days I was as exhausted, satisfied, and uplifted as I’ve ever been in my life. So I wanted to share with you three of those tracks, and it is my intention to share a few more before the holiday season is over. I hope you enjoy these.
God Bless,
Fr. Pat
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In this same vein, as an accompanying song I went scavenging through my own archives to find a favorite piece that I used to sing fairly often. Not really a church composition, per se, it is a song by Stephen Schwartz about being open and prepared enough to recognize when something amazing comes along and being ready take a chance, make the change necessary and embrace the unimagined possibilities of a greater, joy-filled life.
I hope you are all continuing to be well and to actively and intentionally hunt the good moments and savor them when you can.
God Bless,
Fr. Pat
Today I’m including:
- The students of Good Shepherd school singing Joy To The World, under the direction of John Allison. For this I created a more traditional orchestration and arrangement.
- The students of Holy Trinity school singing O Come, O Come Emmanuel under the direction of Donna Blackerby. This was my first time arranging for classical guitars and we had two of our musicians here in the Archdiocese, Bill Kittle and Deacon John Neal in the studio recording with the students. It was so much fun!
- The students of Nativity of Our Lord school singing The First Noël, under the direction of Pat Ellis and Lorraine Green. This was one of my first journeys into what might have been “electro-pop” music. Just something that I hoped would break things up and give the students a chance to experience a bridge between traditional church sounds and those with which they were more familiar.
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