This week we embark on a very different musical course - the opening voluntary is another of the most elegant compositions for solo violin in the entire repertoire - the Romance from the Concerto #2 by Henri Wieniawsky.  I have spent most of my musical career hunting and scouring my vast music library for just the right organ setting or composition for the Liturgical year.  Knowing full well that hardly anyone would know the difference. 

Now both Russ and I embark on a totally new and fresh approach - we hunt for the most moving, esthetically "cosmic" and emotionally mature selections we can find.  Having spent most of our lives in churches where folks chatted, screamed and yelled at each other over the prelude, we Episcopalians still reverence the time of worship at it's very beginning. And I quote John Rutter - "it matters not if there are only two people sitting in the nave, our music is not for them, it is our musical offering for God alone".

Also with this in mind, the offertory improvisation will be based on one of my favorite hymn tunes for lent - Old 124th.  The breadth of sound that fills Saint Matthews each week must be heard to believe.  We have created a musical worship environment that is like no other.  Russ and I believe that our gifts will never be limited to the mundane, common or "expected" forms of musical offerings.  I personally have paid my dues in years past in proving that I could be as big a musical snob as anyone on the planet. Now, in this jumbled up world of ugly, loud, disjointed cacophany, I believe that  we desperately need all the solemn, elegant, thoughtful, inspiring and well written music we can possible find.  And play it as if this is our last day on earth. amen