Ensembles
The parish Ministry of Music is currently structured around three ensembles, and a planning team, as follows:

ST. PAUL CHANCEL CHOIR

Our 12 voice SATB choir has endured the hardship of losing members to the priorities of family and kids, but we’ve managed to continue our wide ranged and fairly aggressive program of repertoire building while remaining focused on our principal role of teaching and supporting congregational singing. Chancel Choir meets for rehearsal September through June on Thursday evenings from 7:30 to 9pm, and ministers weekly at the 9am Sunday liturgy. This hard working ensemble continues to stand in need of new members in all voice parts, and music reading experience is helpful but not necessary.

GAUDETE!

Our contemporary liturgical ensemble leads music at the 11:15 Sunday liturgy week in, week out, rehearsing in the chancel 45 minutes prior to service at 10:30am. The ensemble sings much of the same repertoire as the Chancel Choir, and members are welcome to move freely between the two musical groups. Gaudete welcomes instrumentalists and vocalists of all ages to stop in prior to or after Sunday liturgy and talk with us about making music together.

THE NEW DAY YOUTH CHOIR

St. Paul’s informal, always fun youth choir is now fully reorganized following a transition year. New Day began rehearsals in November, and ministered on Christmas Eve, 2005 at the 4pm Family Liturgy, singing our own arrangement of The Little Drummer Boy. Beginning in January of 2006, New Day will once again have rehearsals following 9am Morning Prayer on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month plus additional rehearsals after Eucharist during Advent. We’re preparing to sing during Lent, Easter, and Pentecost of this year, with an ongoing plan of ministering at least once for each of the six consecutive liturgical seasons (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost). The group is coached by members of the parish’s contemporary ensemble under the watchful oversight of Paula Law (coordinator), Kathy Olsen (co-director), and me.

LITURGY TEAM

The team is now involved in its fourth planning session this year. Working six months ahead, our team continues to craft liturgical, environmental and musical options to create feasts and seasons centered on the Lectionary, and has slowly expanded its scope to include Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and the Feast of Pentecost. Individuals interested on becoming part of the Team process for a season (or longer) should take a minute to talk with Dan or myself after liturgy on Sunday. There are many gifts, but one Spirit.

Goals and Initiatives
The Ministry of Music at St. Paul’s operates principally to enhance and support the Lectionary-based liturgical mission of our parish in all its aspects. To that end, we are currently involved in the following initiatives:

1. Music Library: The parish choral library is now completely changed over from a purchase-date indexing system to a more accessible alphabetical filing system. Many thanks to Kathy Olsen for her tireless work on this project.

2. Service Music: Our shared goal four years ago was to expand the service music repertoire of the parish both for Eucharist and for morning prayer, adding to the single settings used for each. Now, four years later, the congregation has four sets of music for Eucharist in its repertoire (including three settings of the Gloria), eleven Canticles and three settings of Psalm 95 to choose from for Morning Prayer, and a growing number of Responsorial Psalms suitable for use either at Eucharist or liturgy of the hours. This is a remarkable amount of music for a congregation to have incorporated over such a brief time.

3. Hospitality - Worship Resources: One of the best things about liturgy at Saint Paul’s is the range of music the parish draws on to express itself at prayer. Like all other liturgically lively parishes, though, our range produces its own challenges. The Liturgy Team, Dan and I have all been discussing, working on and evaluating the paper resources that we produce and distribute at Saint Paul’s to enable folks to fully (and easily) participate in our liturgies. Clear, inclusive and easy-to-follow resources are particularly important for those who might be visiting our church on a given Sunday. We’re continuing to seek the best possible solution, evaluating resources that are seasonal, weekly and a combination of the two. In-house production of the type of resource most suited to our liturgical style is currently a challenge, but we’ll continue grappling with this very important issue until we arrive at our goal.

4. Saint Paul’s Parish Organ: The turn of the (20th) Century pipe instrument that graces the left side of our chancel began experiencing symptoms a year and a half ago which eventually pointed to typical failure of significant portions of the solid-state repairs which were made to the organ thirty years ago. Our parish is now teamed with C.M. Walsh Pipe Organs of Sharon Hill, PA and the firm’s founder, Colin Walsh, in a process that will create a new instrument around the original pipework of our lovely 1906 Haskell. The restored and expanded pipe instrument is under construction in the Walsh shop as I write this. I designed the specification for the pipework myself, basing the tonal design and scale on a number of English instruments suited to the wide range of hymnody that we enjoy here at Saint Paul’s. This exciting project, enabled by the vision and generosity of the Vestry, is a gift that our generation will give to the future, a truly remarkable, hand-crafted pipe instrument perfectly designed to serve the needs of our congregation for generations to come. Though we’re assured that the project will be complete by Christmas of 2006, fabrication of our instrument’s components has been proceeding at an unusual rate since October, and the project is currently months ahead of schedule. At any rate, once it’s in we’ll host a seriously fun dedicatory concert for the region. I’ll keep you posted!

My thanks to everyone who ministers at Saint Paul’s, and especially to you, the People of God who gather on our hilltop in Oaks. May the fire we kindle here be a beacon of hope in difficult times.

Michael S. Monaghan, Minister of Music