Where Musical Stuff Speaks Loudly
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Breaking News (not the Freedman/Davies Musical)
Sep 12th
I’m not writing anymore musical theater posts in this blog, as I set up a brand new blog named “Musical Theater in the Face,” where additional and recurring-from-this-blog (in paraphrased and sectioned form) posts are now included there. Whether you’re a musical theater actor, actress, technical crew member, writer, or just an everyday person who craves it, then this is the blog for you!
The website of the blog is http://mtintheface.blogatize.net, by the way.
Sudden Terror – 8 Years Later
Sep 11th
I was in school in Florida 8 years ago from today when terrorists attacked the city close to my former hometown of Clifton, NJ – New York City. The hated faces rammed two planes, one in each of the Twin Towers I used to see on the looming skyline as I rode in my parents’ car on NJ 3, and both structures collapsed. My soon-to-be web pal Howard Goodall, uncle to a few of my Facebook friends, was about to relax in the park when he noticed in person what I only see on the screens, and I was a thousand miles or so apart from what was going on near my childhood hometown and where I was schooled.
A few years later, I heard the church praise band sing some tribute to the victims who reposed on what I appropriately call the attacks of September 11, 2001 the “Mournful Morning.” As I attended Senior Youth Group at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Seffner. A year later, I heard the same tune again, and ascertained that it was When Sudden Terror Tears Apart. I sang along and got so juiced up by the hymn that I went online, typed it up on Google, and found what I was looking for – on the Hope Publishing Company’s site.
The Brad Printz/Carl Daw anthem became the subject of last year’s (on September 26) dream, when I was sleeping over at a cousin’s house. I tuned into Bay News 9 and saw a high school choir singing it as a tribute to the victims, and at the point when the chorus sang the part modulated from the haunting G-minor to the assuaging G-major, my ex-cousin, who noticed me watching the television coverage, and I sang along. We applauded softly as the rest of the household slept, but I found them awake. I excitedly told them what I saw on Bay News 9, and woke up.
So this is my blog post for the night, as it is a tribute to those who died in the attacks some 11 miles from my former New Jersey home.
Muzak Accompaniment III: Aloha for Now, Canned Music!
Sep 3rd
I watched two live shows during my weekend at Fort Lauderdale with Muetti and came back with many memories of it! One was a variety show on the island during our Jungle Queen cruise (It’s a BBQ dinner steamboat cruise – check it out if you have the chance if your vacationing there!), and the music is semi-live there. (It beats all-canned!) The big highlight of the weekend was the luau at Mai-Kai, a Polynesian restaurant near the coast. I for one have been to many luaus – two at that restaurant, two at the Polynesian Resort at Walt Disney World, and twice during my 5th and 19th birthday parties. While the latter two used canned music (I did not care – they were my parties, so the heck with complaining!), the rest were all live! That leads to another experience that live music invokes – superior audience participation! I did not go onstage, at that luau, but I taped an excerpt of the action!
Ladies and Gentlemen – I bring you some booty shaking – courtesy of a live luau band!!!
Piping Off on Organs II: 3 Wishes at St. Anthony CC Mass
Aug 31st
Greetings, readers!
I and Muetti just came back from our weekend in Fort Lauderdale – and had a great time there! One of the highlights of the sojourn was the Mass at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, and as I stated in my Musicouch article, “Why I Prefer Pipe to Electric and Digital Organs,” Filipino tradition holds true that we should make three wishes upon attending Mass at an unvisited church. For me, the principal one is for the happy repose of Senator Ted Kennedy (with his funeral and interment occurring a day prior to the day we had that noontime Mass there), and the other two correlate with the newest arts project going on at that time: the EM Skinner Pipe Organ Project.
You see, these two wishes, alongside the other one I allotted for Kennedy’s respite of his soul with all the angels and saints, are closely the same as what I wished for once I set foot inside the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Augustine further north. Having read the pages of the site about the project, that made me wish to return to the church a few months after installation and to find a lucrative job (high-paying, if you’re wondering) to fund the project. So why do I wish to be rich as I enter that new church? As stated in the web page of the reasons why the project is ongoing, it’s one of the most prominent churches in the Archdiocese on Miami and Broward County’s mother church, and Red Masses are held there annually. What’s more, the Protestant churches (Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian) have higher-quality music because thanks to their pipe organs, especially the Ruffatti one at the Coral Ridge church of the latter denomination. So I dug my heels, dressed in my top and jeans, navigated through confusing byways from the resort town of Weston (where Muetti and I stayed), and entered the church for the Mass with a feared-to-be-cruddy digital organ.
The 60-year-old church was spacious, although not as cavernous as St. Larry’s Basilica in Asheville, NC, but bigger than Blessed Sacrament in Harrisonburg, VA. The exterior is a daffodil yellow, gilded with gold and white and green marble, with the latter adorning and structuring the altar and pulpit. Stained glass windows flanked the church, with the rose window on the rear wall. Captivated, I snapped the picture of the altar, and looked over my shoulder to see a man in a blue shirt (he kinda looks like my social networking pal James McConnel from the early 90’s) seating himself on the wood-carved organ console. Mom and I thought about departing from the church, but we stayed for the Mass nevertheless.To find out the liturgical music played at that Mass, here’s my listing with descriptions (It doesn’t matter if you hate it as a Catholic who wants only Palestrina, Gregorian chant, and all the pre-OCP stuff in church – I respect your opinions!):
Prelude by anon
Once seated, the prelude started, with the organ sounds inundating the church. The church’s web site claimed on the whys of the pipe organ project that it was reaching its twilight years, but it sounded too cinematic, almost Bose-like, to be cruddy as I feared. Perhaps the organ was too good to be an Allen – more like a top-shelf Rodgers. After the announcements, the cantor – a brunette Hispanic mezzo with a white top, a rather short and tutu-like gray skirt, and high heels – announced the processional hymn.
Processional Hymn: “All Creatures of Our God And King” by William H. Draper, based on St. Francis’s Canticle of the Sun, tune Laesst Uns Enfreuen from Ausserlesene Catholische Geistliche Kirchengesaeng (cantor, the congregants, and organ)
Instead of the written D major, we sang this a whole tone lower, but the feel of the hymn had stabilized even on a short vacation. I tried hard to temper my funny bones because it’s so reminiscent of the Episcopalian Sunday service sketch from the very first episode of Mr. Bean, when the titular character fumbled over the words because his fellow worshiper did not share his hymnal and started singing the “Alleluias” boisterously during those parts!
Kyrie from Celtic Mass by Christopher Walker
Ah, the early days of attending Mass at my home parish – before childhood memories abounded with Haugen’s Mass of Creation, now a quarter-of-a-century old!
Gloria by anon (cantor, the congregants, and organ)
I don’t know who penned it, but it sounded excellent!
Responsorial Psalm 15 and Gospel Acclamation by Owen Alstott
No description necessary.
Offertory hymn: “O God, You Search Me” by Bernardette Farrell (cantor, the congregants, and organ)
Here comes the Farrell stuff – Catholics who want pre-Haugen/Haas crud beware!
Credo from Celtic Mass by Christopher Walker (cantor, the congregants, and organ)
Wooh-hooh – I’m beginning to like this Mass setting as much as the aforementioned Mass of Creation (dodges flames)!
Memorial Acclamation B from Celtic Mass by Christopher Walker (cantor, the congregants, and organ)
The same principle holds true here!
Doxology from Celtic Mass by Christopher Walker (cantor, the congregants, and organ)
I can’t get enough of that music!
Pater Noster from Celtic Mass by Christopher Walker (cantor, the congregants, and organ)
This is one of my favorite sung settings of the Lord’s Prayer, next to that from the Mass of Creation.
Agnus Dei from Celtic Mass by Christopher Walker (cantor, the congregants, and organ)
Compared to other Mass settings, this one is more genteel and flowing, but I give a cautionary to Catholics who don’t want Walker and his ilk in the parishes.
Communion Hymn: “I Received the Living God” by Richard Proulx, with music by Don Clement Jacob (cantor and organ)
I regarded the rendition of the hymn as one of the best, with the digital organ plucking its virtual harp during the verses and the chimes playing at the end! Wow – it takes me back to my childhood days of having Mass at St. Philip the Apostle’s in NJ!
Sending Forth Hymn: “God of Our Fathers” by Daniel C. Roberts, with the tune “National Hymn” by George W. Warren
What a germane way to conclude this Mass – it was a fitting tribute to the late Senator Kennedy indeed! That reflected my principal wish of the three so well!
This is my listing of the music from the Mass I attended once in St. Anthony’s of Fort Lauderdale, and again, I wish to be wealthy to fund the organ project and to return to the church to hear the organ once the consultants implant it in the edifice.
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