Dear Friends,

The gift of music plays such a big role in our life and mission here at the Cathedral.  Please take a moment to look over the special music events we will offer in March, in addition to our rich schedule of sung liturgies.  I hope to see you at many of them!

Cheers!

Jeremy David Tarrant

Organist-Choirmaster/Canon Precentor

Friday, March 18, 7:30 p.m.

The Cathedral Music Society presents...

 Richard Newman in recital 

Sunday, March 27

The Third Sunday in Lent

Choral Evensong, 4:00 p.m.

with the Schola Cantorum

Service: Short Service--Orlando Gibbons

Responses: Gibbons, arr. Nathaniel Adam

Anthems: Almighty and everlasting God--Gibbons

                  Jesu, grant me this, I pray--Gibbons, arr. Bairstow 

Hymns: 445 (Sommervell), 653

Organ Recital, 5:00 p.m.

 John Lowe, Gainesville, Florida 

You are invited to join us for a special time of Lenten devotion, as we read the Stations of the Cross each Friday in Lent at 12:10 p.m.  The liturgy is followed by a twenty-minute organ recital. 

On February 25, Detroit concertgoers spent an exiting and rewarding evening at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul. The occasion: a program of 19th and 20th century French music for the organ presented by The Cathedral Music Society. The first half of the concert featured our Jeremy David Tarrant playing solos by Cesar Franck, Maurice Durufle, Charles Marie Widor, and Louis Vierne. After intermission, the young conductor from the University of Michigan, Christopher James Lees, led a performance of Francis Poulenc's Concerto in G Minor for organ, strings, and tympani with Mr. Tarrant at the organ in a stunning collaboration with the Michigan Sinfonietta.

Full disclosure: I must confess to owning a 12-volume set of J.S. Bach's works for the organ and am ashamed to admit a total absence of organ music by French composers in my record library. In no way am I qualified to write an informed critique of the evening's concert, but I do want to tell you what a magnificent musical experience it was for those of us who attended (despite the weather forecast).

Mr, Tarrant was at the top of his form! He guided us through the contrasting styles of the four composers whose works he selected for the first half of the program. Opening with Franck's expressive Choral No. 3 in A minor, he continued with Durufle's Scherzo which illustrated the composer's reputation as a musical impressionist. The excerpt from Widor's majestic Symphonie gothique was followed by three perfect images from Vierne's Pieces de fantaisie.

After intermission the excellent string orchestra and the tympanist took their places. Many of the musicians were young and I learned that some of them were graduate students in the U of M's performance division of its school of music. Others were members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Poulenc is one of my favorite composers although I must confess that I did not know that he had written an organ concerto. The audience was enthralled. The crashing chords that Tarrant delivered sounded as though he had extra fingers on each hand. Maestro Lees was an impeccable conductor who made sure that the Sinfonietta maintained the tempos dictated by the score and by the organist. The joy of this performance was evident on the faces of the musicians, both young and not-so-young. My only reservation: the concerto was not long enough- I didn't want it to end after 27 minutes and neither did the folks I talked with after the concert. What a glorious evening!

I hope that The Cathedral Music Society will be able to arrange yearly performances of other organ concertos so that Tarrant an Lees may continue their inspired collaboration.

Evensong Recital Series continues on March 27

For nearly twelve years now, it has been our custom at the Cathedral to follow Choral Evensong (generally offered on the fourth Sunday of the month) with a thirty-minute organ recital. Most of these recitals are played by guest organists, from the Metropolitan area as well as from around the country.  This series of recitals continues on March 27 when we welcome to the console of the Cathedral organ John Lowe, Director of Music and Organist of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Gainesville, Florida. 

John T. Lowe is a native of Lynchburg, Virginia. He received the  Bachelor of Science degree in Organ Performance from Liberty University in 1993, the double Master of Music degree in Organ Performance and Choral Conducting from the University of Alabama in 1996, and the Doctor of Music degree in Organ Performance and Church Music from Indiana University, Bloomington in 2005.  His teachers include David Charles Campbell, George B. Clark, the late J. Warren Hutton, Larry Smith, and Christopher Young in organ, and Sandra Willetts in conducting.  In September 2007, he assumed the duties of Director of Music and Organist at Gainesville, Florida's Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, where he oversees the music program for the 1,125-member congregation, and plays the three-manual, forty-nine rank Visser-Rowland organ in liturgies and concerts.  The program at Holy Trinity includes the Holy Trinity Choir, the auditioned Chamber Choir, a six-octave handbell choir, a chorister's program affiliated with The Royal School of Church Music in America (RSCMA), a Folk Choir, and the Music at Holy Trinity series.   He is also the Sub-Dean of the Gainesville Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and accompanist for The Village Voices (Lady Lake, Florida).

Dr. Lowe has been a prizewinner in local, regional, and national competitions. In 1991 he was first place winner of the American Guild of Organists Regional Competition for Young Organists in Annapolis, Maryland, and in 1996 the second place winner of the San Marino, California Organ Competition. In 1998 and 1999, he was one of 25 young artists invited to compete in both the opening rounds of the Calgary International Organ Competition and the American Guild of Organists' National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance, respectively. He has performed recitals in Alabama, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, and Virginia, and his accompanying engagements have taken him to the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, New Zealand, and Australia.

Dr. Lowe's recital in the Cathedral follows the service of Choral Evensong on March 27 at 4:00 p.m.