Calendar

The Choir of St. John’s, Shaughnessy will offer the traditional Anglican service of Choral Evensong.

• Introit: Richard Farrant, Hide Not Thou Thy Face
• Responses: Thomas Tomkins
• Canticles: Healey Willan, Fauxbourdon Evening Service
• Anthem: Orlande de Lassus, Amen, amen dico vobis

On the Second Sunday in Lent, we take a more subdued approach to our evening service offerings in keeping with the solemn and austere sensibilities of the season. Richard Farrant and Thomas Tomkins works are highly regarded staples of the English renaissance, and Healey Willan’s renaissance-inspired setting of the canticles draws us further back, steeped in psalm tone melodies over a thousand years old. Orlande de Lassus was one of the most prolific composers of the 16th century, and in his setting of John 5:24, we hear Jesus’ reassurance that, though we are surrounded by death, in him we can have life.

Come deepen your Lenten experience with music spanning the centuries, drawing us back to the time of the early church, and meditate on our still broken world that shares so much heaviness and grief with its former self. Come listen to the words of hope that spring up out of this world and draw us ever towards a more glorious one. Come breathe in stillness and beauty and find release from earthly toil and worry. Come share in the 400-year old tradition of Choral Evensong.

Clara Bow’s role as the plucky shop girl in this 1927 box office hit brought her global fame and made her the first-ever “It Girl”. Bow is magnetic as Betty, who is enamored with the wealthy owner of the department store where she works and determined to catch his attention.  Accompanied live by Vancouver Civic Theatres organist Michael Dirk on the historic Wurlitzer organ.

Celebrating International Women’s Day

• Responses: Joanna Forbes L’Estrange (b. 1971)
• Psalm: 34
• Canticles: Tamsin Jones (b. 1972) Evening Canticles in the Dorian Mode
• Anthem: Ola Gjello (b. 1978) Ave Generosa (Hildegard von Bingen)

• Psalms: 114. 115 (faburden)
• Canticles: Mode III
• Motet: Thomas Aquinas,O salutaris hostia (cantatus super librum)

Performers and repertoire:

Rachel Alflatt: Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 533

Richard Egolf: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland. BWV 659

Isaac Howie: J. S. Bach transcr. M. Reger – Prelude and Fugue in Bb Minor, BWV 867

PJ Janson: Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565

Huiyuan (Cindy) Ma: Allein Gott in der Höh´ sei Ehr´, BWV 662

Angelique Po: Prelude and Fugue in E major, BWV 566

David Poon: O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß, BWV 622

Neil Robertson: Prelude and Fugue in G minor, BWV 558

Abraham Ross: O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig, BWV 656

A wine-and-cheese reception is planned following the concert, which is a great opportunity to meet the performers. For planning purposes, please register to indicate your intention to attend here.

Sunday 5 April is the first Sunday of the month, which means the Choir of St. John’s Shaughnessy will offer the traditional Anglican service of Choral Evensong. They will be joined by singers from Christ Church Cathedral, St James Anglican Church, and MOTET to celebrate the greatest feast day of the Christian liturgical year.

This month’s music list:

Introit: Samuel Scheidt, Surrexit Christus hodie
Responses: Bernard Rose
Psalm 113: Stanley Vann
Canticles: Charles V Stanford, Evening Service in G, Op.81
Anthem: Charles V Stanford, Ye choirs of new Jerusalem
Voluntary: Louis Vierne, ‘Final’ from Symphony No.1

Though many churches are busy with Holy Week services, the celebration of the Resurrection at Easter merits the greatest outpouring of praise and thanksgiving. Come hear combined choirs singing Stanford’s powerful Ye choirs of new Jerusalem and the organ sounding the brilliant and celebratory Final of Vierne’s Organ Symphony at the apex of your Easter experience. Find hope and joy even amidst the terrors of this world, and find strength in words spoken across millennia still giving us purpose today.