What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Homily – Music Sunday Orchestral Megasong

    Here’s what I said to wrap up our West End Festival events on Sunday evening:

    As most of you will know, it is my habit to announce what we are doing at St Mary’s on the internet.

    Most people who come through the doors of this church these days for the first time have already encountered us online first.

    Our webpage and my blog attract people to this place who are seeking something. No doubt they also put off some others, and that’s OK too. Why waste people’s time if this is not what they are looking for.

    I was a little puzzled as to how to describe this service tonight.

    It is certainly choral evensong, but that didn’t seem to be enough. There is a touch of the festive about it, but even Festival Evensong does not seem to be a big enough description.

    I then looked to see how others were referring to it and found that someone who is singing tonight had referred to it as (more…)

2 responses to “E and B”

  1. Martin Ritchie Avatar
    Martin Ritchie

    One of the interesting things about choral evensong is that in some places it can seem like a living tradition that can speak to anyone, whereas in others it can appear to be dry as dust, pompous and irrelevant. What do you think the “method” is that produces a living choral evensong as opposed to an antiquarian one?

    Reply
  2. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    That’s a good question, Martin and I agree, it can be miserable.

    I think that worship tends to take off when those planning it and organising and leading it care more about what we are doing when we worship than in the form in which we worship.

    I suspect that Choral Evensong is not best led by liturgical, musical or prayer book fundamentalists or by those who happen to find this a way of encountering the holy.

    A culture of offering the best we can be to God helps. Good relationships between musicians and clergy help. As usual, clear liturgical books in the hands of the faithful help. And whoever is leading needs not to be frightened of a bit of silence now and then amidst the music.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • Sermon on 10 August 2003

    There has been a row in my family this week. I was wondering whether you would all like to hear about it this morning…

  • Thursday Evening

    Second posting. I’m trying to get my head around the postnuke cms system in order to use it as a blog. How clever it all is, I just wish I could use it properly. The colours on this page are all of a muddle and I don’t seem to be able to fix it at…

  • Sunday Evening

    I baptised a child today. As usual, the child was as good as gold and I ended up with a wet elbow. People cluck in an approving manner when I manage to hold babies and they don’t cry. The only sure rule that I have learned us not to turn them upside down. They don’t…