Today when parishioners walked into the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, they couldn’t help but notice that things were different. At LCH, Pentecost has been the festival when balloons, liturgical dance, jazz, or different configurations of the nave were seen. Today was Carl Crosier’s last Pentecost as Cantor.

You could certainly call today’s service another over-the-top event. A few minutes before the service, I told Pastor Jeff that Carl and I had to leave right after the service to get to the airport. He said, “We are having an Organ Prelude, an Introit, a Chorale Prelude, AND then the Opening Hymn?” “Yup! also a long anthem and a long postlude!”

Here’s a listing of the music we did today:
Organ Prelude: Apparition de l’Eglise eternelle (Olivier Messiaen)
Introit: Spiritus Domini (Mode VIII)
Chorale Prelude: Cwm rhondda (Paul Manz)
Entrance Hymn: God of tempest, God of whirlwind (Cwm rhondda)
Kyrie (William Mathias)
This is the Feast (Peter R. Hallock)
Psalm 104 (Peter Hallock)
Chorale Prelude: Veni Creator spiritus (K. Crosier)
Sequence Hymn: Come, holy Ghost, our souls inspire
Children’s Hymn: Breathe on me, breath of God (Trentham)
Hymn of the Day: O day full of grace
Offertory Anthem: Dum complerentur (Peter Maxwell Davies)
Sanctus, Benedictus & Agnus Dei (William Mathias)
At the Distribution: Ave maris stella III (Marcel Dupré)
Communion Motet: Veni sancta spiritus (Peter Maxwell Davies)
Sending Hymn: Remember and rejoice
Organ Postlude: Dieu parmi nous (Olivier Messiaen)

I’m happy to report that the difficult choral anthems by Peter Maxwell Davies went extremely well — and Carl is so proud of the choir for “hanging in there,” when a cell phone went off in between sections. I was afraid the choir wouldn’t be able to find the pitches in the next section after that! There was one part in the “Dum complerentur” where the choir divided into 13 parts in a giant tone cluster and it almost sounded like electronic feedback — it was so eerie.

The clock was ticking down and I have to thank Pastor Jeff for having me play the postlude (Dieu Parmi Nous) before the announcements so we could get out of there in a hurry to make our plane. He did make a comment afterwards about the piece being suited for a horror movie soundtrack! But I think it went very well and all the extra practice I put into it this week paid off.

It was nice to see Carol Mansfield (and family) and Julie Nadeau (and family) in the service this morning. Both of these ladies were choristers in the 8 am choir for many years before moving away to the mainland.

Oh, by the way, we DID make our plane so we’re on our way to Boston.