Last night I attended the 44th Advent Procession at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, and afterwards, a few people mentioned to me that they had been thinking of Carl Crosier. Actually, I was thinking of both Carl (who died in 2014), as well as the late Peter Hallock (1924-2014) and their influence upon the Advent season. I once wrote a post “Hallock’s music for Advent,” in which I stated: “it wouldn’t be Advent without Hallock’s music” in that he wrote two settings of the “O” Antiphons, an Advent Litany, Advent Calendar, and several Advent Processionals: “From lands that see the sun arise,” “Behold a mighty Prophet,” and “I saw a new heaven and a new earth,” which is what was used last night. You would think that Advent was Peter’s favorite season!
And of course, it was during Carl Crosier’s long tenure at LCH that Advent Procession was established as a seasonal tradition, and the “O” Antiphon banners were made in 1989.
Earlier in the week, Scott Fikse, LCH’s Director of Music and Liturgy, showed me a recording of Hallock’s “O” Antiphons from St. Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle. He said he was particularly drawn to the design of the Seattle church’s “O” Antiphon banners, which was shown inside the CD booklet.
Then he asked if I remembered doing the layout of the CD, and I answered, “No.” Funny, then, that my name was credited with the cover design of the CD! I had completely forgotten about it, among all the thousands of print jobs I’ve done!
Of course, during the singing of the last hymn, I couldn’t help but think of Carl, and his arrangement of “Veni, veni Emmanuel.” The tempo was a little faster than I was used to, but it was very much Carl’s music.
In the afternoon, I happened to be practicing the accompaniment to the “Hallelujah Chorus,” which I’ll be playing this coming weekend with the Oahu Choral Society. Wouldn’t you know it, my former student Joey Fala texted me this picture, with the teaser, “Look who I’m at dinner with”!
Joey had dinner with David Newman, who was in Durham, NC to sing three performances (Nov. 30, Dec. 1 and 2, 2018) of Messiah at Duke University: “For over eighty-five years, Messiah has been the cornerstone of the Chapel’s concert life and one of the centerpieces of Duke’s holiday season.”
You may remember that David came to Hawaii in 2011 to sing two performances of Bach “Mass in B Minor,” Carl Crosier’s last concerts upon retirement!
Joey said he wasn’t even at the performance, but got invited to the post-concert party and ended up sitting next to him at dinner. Somehow it was brought up that Joey grew up in Hawaii, and then David said, “Wait, so you know Kathy? I may have met you (meaning Joey) when you were younger … ”
Small world, isn’t it?!