Lessons and Carols |
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| The concert will begin at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 21, at the Bishop O’Connor Center, 702 S. High Point Rd., Madison, which is wheelchair accessible. While the concert is free, people are asked to bring a non-perishable food item for the Catholic Multicultural Center. A second Lessons and Carols will take place at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 3, at St. Bernard Church in Watertown. Once again, no admission, but the choir appreciates a freewill offering to support its music ministry. Both performances will feature a quintet and bagpipes. |
MADISON — Preserving a long-standing tradition recently in doubt, the Madison Diocesan Choir returns to the Bishop O’Connor Catholic Pastoral Center Sunday, Dec. 21, for a Festival of Lessons and Carols, a joyful celebration featuring wind instruments and reaffirming the choir’s music ministry in service to the diocese.
Months ago, the choir and its director, Dr. Patrick Gorman, were in search of a new home, a daunting challenge. With plans to convert the former seminary into a housing development, the choir required not only a place to store its music, but one large enough for weekly rehearsals. The choir has more than 70 active members from parishes throughout the diocese.
Plans change
In June, however, development plans changed, and Msgr. James Bartylla, vicar general, announced that the diocese would maintain its presence in the historic building. Diocesan offices would remain in a mixed-use development and the chapel would be preserved as a house of worship with the weekday noon Mass and liturgical services, such as Lessons and Carols.
With one exception, the choir has been performing the Lessons and Carols every year since 1990. The story of man’s fall from grace and eventual redemption with the birth of Christ is told with nine readings and music.
The lone exception was the year 2000 when the choir joined the Madison Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in performing the Bach Magnificat in the chapel.
What was in doubt this year was not so much the event itself but the location, according to Gorman, who has been choir director since 1992 and is also director of the Diocese of Madison Office of Worship.
“It’s very good that we’re back in the chapel,” Gorman said. “It’s such a lovely chapel. It’s so nice that we’ll be able to continue to do things like this. So it’s really fortunate for the diocese that we’ve maintained this chapel.”
Slightly different approach
With that resolved, Gorman began planning for Lessons and Carols soon after the announcement, and he wanted to take a slightly different approach than earlier Christmas concerts featuring guest soloists, or brass, strings, and harp, as wonderful and pleasing as all these instruments are.
“When it looked like we might be keeping the chapel, I decided it would be nice to invite a woodwind quintet, one that I’ve worked with pretty regularly, because it’s just a whole different sound than brass, or strings, or harp. What’s different about them is that they’re very light and airy. Where as brass can be very solemn, the woodwinds can express joy and energy that sometimes the other instruments can’t.”
As the program developed, bagpipes were included, but more on that later.
About the quintet
The quintet, Odyssey Winds, and its coordinator, Sarah Gillespie, should be familiar to those who attend choir events or Sunday Mass at St. Patrick Church of the Cathedral Parish in downtown Madison. The quintet has performed with the choir for Rite of Election at St. John the Baptist Church in Waunakee.
Gillespie, a doctoral student in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, plays the French horn, sings in the St. Patrick Church choir, and has served as cantor with both the parish and diocesan choirs.
When Gorman asked Gillespie if the quintet wanted to be part of the program, she didn’t hesitate. “Pat is an amazing director and is so easy to follow as a choir member as well as an instrumentalist,” she said. “He also arranges a lot of the pieces we play with the choir, which takes a lot of time and effort outside of his usual duties. I don’t know how he keeps everything together. He is a wizard!”
Gorman said the quintet will accompany the choir on Angels Carol, Christ Hath a Garden, Ding Dong Merrily on High, He is Born, and How Great Our Joy, among other selections. In keeping with tradition, all in attendance will be asked to join in singing a number of carols.
Theme of joy
The Lessons and Carols theme is one of joy. “I wanted to just express all the facets of joy that we have, from the ‘glorias’ in Angels Carol to the rhythmic energy of Ding Dong Merrily, and the hymn, How Great Our Joy, a nice familiar tone, just very happy piece,” Gorman said.
A highlight for Gorman is Ding Dong Merrily. It features not only the quintet, but Assistant Director Glenn Schuster and Josephine Cowen at the keyboard playing a piano four-hands accompaniment.
Gorman said, “It’s happy, it’s exuberant, it’s challenging both for the pianists and the choir. Just a little English carol, but it’s one of the highlights, I think.”
Gillespie welcomed the opportunity to perform with Schuster. “The organ could easily overpower a wind quintet; we appreciate his consciousness while playing with us. His musicality and sensitivity are paramount.”
Bagpipes featured
Other highlights for Gorman include the Swedish carol, Jul, Jul, and the Welsh lullaby, Suo Gan, both further expressions of joy. “Suo Gan is a lullaby, but it’s a little more profound joy,” he said. And it is Suo Gan that will feature the bagpipes, played by Tom Greenhalgh of Madison.
“The bagpipe is kind of an outdoor instrument and to have it in the chapel can be overwhelming,” Gorman said. But in discussing the program with Greenhalgh, he learned Greenhalgh had a lighter set of pipes.
Greenhalgh has played the bagpipes for 16 years, including performances at Dr. Martin Luther King tributes, Concerts on the Square, Opera in the Park, and Brigadoon.
“The Great Highland Bagpipe is a loud instrument, with no volume control,” said Greenhalgh. But it shouldn’t be a problem for a choir with 60 members or more. Just the same, he had a second chanter that’s pitched lower, as well as two sets of smaller pipes. “Both are considerably quieter.”
Choir transitions
The choir is in somewhat of a transition, having lost several talented members. Still, Gorman cited new additions and said the choir in some respects is off to a better start than in previous years. “They seem to be learning the music a little more quickly than usual and singing with a lot more confidence than last year.”
“One of the most important things with the choir for me is blend,” Gorman said “The trick of blend is to have everybody have their unique voice, but then also to fit that voice in the bigger picture.”
It’s no different than harmony sought in the broader community or the Church itself, he said. “Pope Benedict, actually, and Pope Francis, too, often compared the unity in the Church to a symphony orchestra with the idea that everybody is working toward a common goal. The instruments have such different timbres and note ranges and rhythms that individually they can’t carry it on their own, but all together they produce this magnificent sound.”