Inspired by the Compline Service at St. Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle, Carl Crosier gathered eight men from different churches to sing the first LCH Compline on August 1, 1976. The short service has been sung every Sunday at 9 pm ever since, interrupted only by occasional concerts and New Year’s Eve fireworks.
We have the program from that night, which listed Dr. Helmuth Hormann as the officiant, but our memories can’t be relied upon anymore to know the names of the eight men. Certainly Carl Crosier was there; but at the 30th anniversary of LCH Compline in 2006, we listed those first singers to include: Joe Dellinger, John Graham, Allan Haley, John Hanley, Willis Moore, Dale Noble, Larry Nitz, Malcolm Tait and Curtis Zimmerman.
Because there was no choral service being sung regularly in Honolulu, Carl hearkened back to his experiences at St. Mark’s and tried to do something similar in Honolulu. Dr. Peter Hallock was most generous in sharing musical and liturgical materials to get us started. This was also the time that Carl began to develop his own countertenor singing.
Artist Roland Roy designed the Compline “logo” which was used on that first LCH Compline bulletin and now is seen on T-Shirts worn by many in the congregation today.
To think that the first LCH Compline service happened nearly thirty-five years ago, and I was there . . . that’s mind-boggling!
I do remember the first Compline service and it seemed perfectly natural for an Episcopal priest to participate with the Lutherans. And later came the Crosier wedding officiated by 1 Lutheran pastor and 2 Episcopal priests. I still have, and often have used, the stole made for the wedding.
[…] about a year ago, I wrote a post about LCH’s first Compline Service, which happened on August 1, 1976. Well, today I’m going to invite you to Carl Crosier’s […]
[…] would suggest that you read some of my previous posts about Compline here: “The First LCH Compline,” “Bittersweet Compline,” and “A gift of love,” in which you can hear […]