— Organists and Organ Playing —

Alleluia Mass this Sunday

June 23, 2011
Doris Au MacDonald, Kathy Crosier's sister, of The Braeded Chord. Photo was taken in the LCH courtyard.
Doris Au MacDonald, Kathy Crosier's sister, of The Braeded Chord. Photo was taken in the LCH courtyard.

This Sunday, June 26th, John Alexander will be away attending a niece’s graduation and he asked Carl to conduct the 8 am ensemble. That means you’ll have to put up with me playing the piano. Sorry! On the schedule will be the Alleluia Mass, written by the folk duo, The Braeded Chord aka Sharon Dennis and Doris Au MacDonald (my youngest sister).

It was just about a year ago that I started this blog and one of the first postings I wrote was about The Braeded Chord. Since then, a new video was produced using footage of their trip to Kenya, which you can view here. By the way, initially Sharon and Doris called themselves “The Braided Chord,” but found out that name belonged to another musical group. The idea originates from Ecclesiastes 4:12 that says, “a cord of three strands is not easily broken.”  They wanted to choose a name that reflected their style of music with its intertwined harmonies, their friendship, and their faith, with the third strand being God. So Doris came up the “celtic” spelling to reflect Sharon’s Irish ancestry and her husband Alan MacDonald’s half-Scot heritage.

The Braeded Chord's courtyard concert at LCH, April 2008
The Braeded Chord's courtyard concert at LCH, April 2008

Later this summer we will all meet at the national conference of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians (ALCM) in Seattle, WA and will share an exhibit booth — they to sell their CDs and sheet music, and we to display music from Ionian Arts. As Vice-President of Region 4 of ALCM, I have been involved in the planning of our next regional conference which will take place next July 2012 at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, CA. We have asked the Braeded Chord to compose a new Morning Prayer setting and I understand they have also been working on a new Evening Prayer setting as well.

Meanwhile, the Alleluia Mass, which was commissioned by the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, became a CD called “Follow the Cross,” which won a WAMMY (Washington Area Music Association) award in 2009 for Best Gospel/Inspirational Recording of the Year. The Alleluia Mass is now being performed in churches in the U.S., Canada and New Zealand. Yay, Sharon and Doris!