I hope you are all still feeling the “glow” after spending an incredible week of preparation and two performances (three if you count Wednesday night) of this truly great masterwork. As I told the people who attended the luncheon on Sunday, the choral singing you did in the B minor Mass was some of the very best in all my years at LCH. And this score I consider to be the most vocally challenging of all the Bach choral works. But, I believe I warned you at the first choral rehearsal that you would be in the best vocal shape ever by the time we got to the performances. And you did not disappoint! People have been giving accolade after accolade for the “superb” singing of the chorus.

I had been asked by several people as these final concerts were approaching, whether this was going to be difficult emotionally for me. I told them, that I really didn’t have any extra time or energy to be focused on that aspect of things, because I felt a tremendous responsibility to stay highly focused on keeping the whole thing together musically, technically and spiritually. And I think we truly did achieve this with highly musical, technically skilled, and spiritually deep performances.

I will admit to having a “personal moment” in the middle of Meg Bragle’s sublime Agnus Dei on Saturday night that in 5 minutes this would all be concluded. I had no feeling of sadness, but rather thought “can it really get any better than this?”

I wish to thank each of you for coming on the journey to share this magnificent masterpiece with our Honolulu community. What a privilege it has been to work with all of you, the wonderful musicians of the Bach Chamber Orchestra, and our superb vocal soloists to touch people’s lives with such great beauty. I consider these performances to be the crowning glory of my 38 years at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu.

My sincerest thanks to each of you,

Carl Crosier

Cantor