This week I’m back at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church to play their High Mass, and if I do say so myself, everything went fine last Sunday except for one teeny-tiny glitch in the Gospel Acclamation. The assembly sang “Laudate dominum” by Jacques Berthier from Taizé which had a first and second ending. (You might be interested in reading all about the meditative singing in the Taizé community by clicking here.) I was told that the procession would need 6-7 repeats of this, and I didn’t realize until too late, that they would just sing the first ending over and over, and sing the second ending only at the last repetition. This week I’ll know what to do.

Last Sunday’s propers had to do with the Lord’s Prayer, so I played a chorale prelude setting of Vater unser im Himmelreich (Our Father in heaven) by Georg Böhm (1661-1733) for the prelude, and a setting of the same tune from Bach’s Clavierübung for the postlude.

This week I’ll be playing two pieces from Bach’s Great Eighteen Chorales for the organ voluntaries: Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele (Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness) for the prelude, and Komm Gott, Schöpfer, Heiliger Geist (the German version of Veni Creator Spiritus) for the postlude. So in a way, I’m giving a sneak preview of my August 18th and 25th Bach concerts. Hey, why not — I’m already well practiced on these pieces so don’t mind if I do — and take this opportunity to perform works from my concert.

The choral editions of the four-part chorales which I have been working on for WEEKS are just about done and only need to be printed out. The Bach Chamber Choir will have just one rehearsal to learn 40 pages of music, but luckily we can convert every page to PDF format and email them ahead of the rehearsal.

It’s not too late to reserve tickets for this two-part mini-series: You can click here to book your tickets online. Tickets will also be available at the door.