The first time I heard the word “Compline” was when I was a music student at the University of Southern California and learned about the Daily Offices in Music History 101. That was more than fifty years ago!

The Lutheran Church of Honolulu started its own Compline Service modeled after the one in Seattle on August 1, 1976. Here’s what I wrote about the first Compline Service at LCH: 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.

It was not until 1978 that Carl and I flew to Seattle and heard the service at St. Mark’s Cathedral. A year later, the Seattle Compline choir came to Hawaii and performed twice at the American Guild of Organists Regional Convention. The last performance was a “Double Compline,” when the two choirs joined together and sang antiphonally at Kawaiaha’o Church.

Jason Anderson, the second director of the Compline Choir, wrote the following about the origins of the Seattle service:

The Office of Compline at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle has its origins in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, where Peter Hallock, a Royal School of Church Music student from 1949 to 1951, and fellow classmates chanted Compline. At Hallock’s invitation, 12 music students from the University of Washington gathered at Saint Mark’s to study and sing plainsong. By late 1956, this group became the Compline Choir and began singing the Office of Compline for others on Sunday nights.

Compline has developed a lasting popularity of almost mythical proportions, unlike any other worship event in the Pacific Northwest. The service continues to attract a diverse congregation upwards of 300 people, who come to sit in the quiet and dimly lit nave, to listen to words and music, and to be renewed and comforted by this ancient liturgical office. Classical KING-FM 98.1 estimates that 10,000 or more listen to weekly radio or internet broadcasts.

The reasons behind the success and popularity of Compline are difficult to pinpoint. The choir sang to an empty church at first. However, a congregation blossomed in the 1960s—during the age of the flower children—when Eastern religions began influencing Western thought, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.

“Compline occurs in space—not just the acoustical space of the cathedral, but also the psychological space opened for us in darkness and night. Those gathered at the cathedral and listening to the radio or online broadcasts form a congregation engaged in a mystical experience that helps facilitate a journey towards the Divine.”

This year the Compline Choir will celebrate its 65th anniversary with a series of events on October 16-17, 2021, including an open rehearsal, dinner at Peter Hallock’s former home (now owned by his successor Mel Butler and his wife, Mary), a reception in the parish hall, Sunday morning service with lots of Hallock music and the Compline Service at 9:30 pm.

From the fundraising letter:

This year we celebrate the 65th anniversary of Compline. Our celebration will be subdued since the pandemic is not yet behind us, but we are honored to celebrate a tradition that started 65 years ago and has persisted through wars, dramatic changes in technology, and a pandemic.

Guess who’s going?