MUSIC AT SAINT PAUL & THE REDEEMER

The Church has become one of the few places in the 21^st Century where you can participate in a consistently formed community whose members strive to serve one another and the world outside. One of the most spectacular and perhaps oddest means (by secular terms) in which we show our unity is that we sing together. Singing is an important way to heighten a ritual experience.

MUSIC AS LITURGY

We trace our musical lineage to the 11-10^th Century B.C. with the development of sung psalmody in temple and synagogue worship. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus and his followers sing a hymn, probably a psalm, at the Last Supper. St. Paul describes the "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" of the ancient Christians.

The very earliest of Christian liturgies contained monotone, or all sung on one note, responses and prayers. In this way certain prayers and rites were given prominence and in these simple musical formulas a unified congregational rhythm could be established. Also, when texts are set to music they are given an aid in their memorization.

MUSIC AS COMMUNITY

Saint Paul & the Redeemer is committed to celebrating the diversity of music in various times, places, and peoples. A typical liturgy may contain music from Baroque Germany, Victorian England, contemporary Mexico, contemporary America, Portuguese folk, Caribbean, Baroque Italy, Baroque England, contemporary England, Gregorian chant, Negro Spiritual, Renaissance Italy, and Tanzania. In that diversity, we celebrate an even broader unity of community in song that crosses borders of time, geography, and creed.

SPR's Music Program emphasies the role of music as supporting liturgy. Our choir is not only those vested near the organ, but all those gathered to offer praise. At the very heart of our sacred work together we place our youngest members for they are continually formed by the Word of God in a rich offering of music.

2 Chronicles 5.11-14

And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place: ...(all of them...with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets:)It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God.

Click here for the Choir Handbook for 2007-8.

Click here for the Choir Calendar for 2007-8.