St. Cecilia is the patron saint of music and her feast day is celebrated on November 22 by Catholic and Orthodox churches.

While the details of her story may be apocryphal, her existence and martyrdom are considered a historical fact. She is said to have been beheaded with a sword. An early church, Santa Cecilia, was founded in the 3rd century by Pope Urban I in the Trastevere section of Rome, reputedly on the site of the house in which she lived. A number of musical compositions are dedicated to her, and her feast day has become the occasion for concerts and musical festivals.” (Wikipedia)

In the United States, November 22 is permanently burned in our memories as the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. But now, a giant in the world of church music has also passed on this day, Stephen Cleobury, who spent 37 years of his life as the conductor of Kings College, Cambridge.

Here was the video announcement by the College about Cleobury’s death:

(I am aware that readers of this blog who receive notice about new postings through email are unable to view embedded videos so I suggest that you view the post through the website: insanity.blogs.lchwelcome.org)

We were fortunate to attend two of Kings College famous Lessons and Carols services (1992 and 1999) in which Stephen Cleobury was conducting. The tradition of commissioning a new carol for each service was begun by Cleobury in 1983, but not without some controversy.

In Stuart Jeffries’ article in The Guardian, he asks the question:

The Nine Lessons and Carols service from King’s College, Cambridge, is a Christmas tradition with 30 million listeners worldwide. So why does its director of music want to shake things up?

A few years ago, Stephen Cleobury received a furious letter. It read: “Whoever commissioned that carol should be locked in a darkened room and never let out.”

New carols since 1983 include Thomas Adès’s The Fayrfax Carol; Judith Weir’s Illuminare, Jerusalem; Peter Maxwell-Davies’s One Star, At Last; and Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Misere’ Nobis. He also prevailed upon Estonian genius Arvo Pärt to write one of the shortest but most popular of his commissions, Rejoice, O Virgin Mary, which was sung in Russian. (Carl Crosier introduced Judith Weir’s Illuminare, Jerusalem and Peter Maxwell Davies’ One Star at Last to the choir at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu).

Carl also participated in a choir rehearsal in California when Stephen Cleobury came to guest-conduct at Dana Marsh’s invitation. He said Cleobury heard the choir sing an anthem all the way through, and was very complimentary about its performance. And then, he pointed out all the myriad details that could be improved, listing a dozen or so points where the choir was not singing the correct notes or rhythms, quoting specific measure numbers from memory. Carl was amazed at his recall of the “chapter and verse” of the performance.

Even though he was more known for his choral conducting, Stephen Cleobury was an organist, and I found a snippet of his playing on YouTube:

Hey, in looking at the obituary on Stephen Cleobury, I found out he had the same first and middle name as my son, as his name is Stephen John Cleobury (my son’s name is Stephen John Crosier!)

Here is a video of Cleobury conducting “For unto us a child is born” from Handel Messiah.

Well done, thou good and faithful servant.