The world lost a great man and a great church musician when Gerre Hancock passed on to his eternal life Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012.

I have know Gerre (he always scolded me for calling him Dr. Hancock) for nearly twenty years, and can easily recall when I first met him. We were on the street outside a restaurant during an Anglican Musicians conference, and a mutual friend introduced us. I knew of him as one of the foremost church musicians in the country, and already had some limited correspondence with him. In just a moment, I realized I had met a kind and gracious man, and I was surprised that someone so important could be so nice. From that meeting on, he always greeted me by name when we met, and I know that was because of his love of people.

I have already read many wonderful tributes to his improvisatory skills, organ playing skills, leadership of choirs, and general musicianship. I cannot add anything of value to those comments and stories. But I think we can learn from his life that it is important to love the people you work with; to rejoice in making music; to help our colleagues as we are able; and to live a humble life. Doing so helped him change the face of church music in the 20th century, and inspire generations of singers and other organists and choir directors, as well as the congregations he served. Would that we could have a similar affect on even a few people in our lives.

The premiere of Craig Phillips’ “Scenes from a Gallery”  will conclude the first hour of the program, and Alfred V. Fedak’s “Invocation & Dance” concludes the second hour of the program.

“Scenes from a Gallery” will be published late 2011 in various editions, but it is a six-movement work for organ, violin, and flute, with each movement a reflection/interpretation by the composer on an accompanying painting or sculpture. A powerful suite, and it is ideally performed with each artwork projected for the audience to view during the performance. Craig Phillips premiered this commissioned work in 2010 at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Amarillo, Texas, with Annie Chalex, violin, and Brad Garner, flute. “The six movements vary quite a bit in terms of texture, mood, and style, but I think they also meld quite well into a cohesive and engaging work,” Phillips says. “I hope the overall effect would be as if the listener were walking through an art gallery.”

More information on this work is found at
http://www.selahpub.com/OrganKeyboard/OrganTitles/160-900-ScenesFromAGallery.html

Fedak’s “Invocation & Dance” was premiered in 2000 at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Albany, N.Y., by organist Huw Lewis and the Franciscan Chamber Orchestra (Lanfranco Marcelletti, conductor). This work is a brief diptych for organ, strings, and percussion (timpani and tambourine). The score is inscribed with a quotation from Psalm 30.11: “Thou hast turned my laments into dancing.”

Information on Fedak’s “Invocation & Dance” may be found at
http://www.selahpub.com/OrganKeyboard/OrganTitles/160-95x-Invocation.html

Find the Pipedreams program online at
http://pipedreams.publicradio.org/listings/2011/1134/

Most of Quinn’s published hymns up to 1994 came from his first collection, New Hymns for All Seasons, which came out in 1969.  I contacted Fr. Quinn in the early 1990s to ask about his hymns, and was delighted to learn he had written many more hymns and paraphrases in the intervening decades. Selah then worked with him and his English publisher, Geoffrey Chapman, to publish a complete collection of his hymns, Praise for All Seasons, which came out in 1994. Sadly, he did not write much after this publication came out, though I understand he did write many jokes to brighten the days of others in the home where he lived.

Fr. Quinn was a gifted writer, and I particularly appreciated the review of his volume in the AAM Journal back in 1998, on why Quinn’s texts were so well received: “…it is Fr. Quinn’s ability to articulate the orthodox aspects of Christianity in new and fresh ways.”

That he did, and for many helped us better understand the mystery and presence of God in our world today.

The last stanza of Quinn’s paraphrase of St. Francis of Assisi’s prayer (”Lord, Make Us Servants of Your Peace”) can be sung for him and for all of us:

Dying, we live, and are reborn
through death’s dark night to endless day;
Lord, make us servants of your peace,
to wake at last in heaven’s light.

In the first two stanzas, we find a pretty good guide to living:

Lord, make us servants of your peace;
where there is hate, may we sow love;
where there is hurt, may we forgive;
where there is strife, may we make one.

Where all is doubt, may we sow faith;
where all is gloom, may we sow hope;
where all is night, may we sow light;
where all is tears, may we sow joy.

James Quinn, S.J., ©

Quinn sowed faith, hope, light, and joy through his writings, and will continue to do so for generations.

You can find an interview I did with Richard some years ago at

http://www.selahpub.com/MusicInWorship/ProulxInterview.html

Dr. White was interviewed by the Houston public radio station (KUHF) along with the choral director Dr. Betsy Cook Weber (Director of Choral Studies at University of Houston), who coordinated the celebration. Streaming audio of this intervew may be found at

http://kuhf.convio.net/programaudio/thefrontrow/2009/12/091202White.m3u

or an mp3 may be downloaded at

http://kuhf.convio.net/programaudio/thefrontrow/2009/12/091202White.mp3

Russell Schulz wrote about Pat in his Foreword to her first collection, A Still Small Voice:

“Pat Clark writes directly, because she intends to find people where they are and help them sing their faith. She inevitably will choose real character over pretension and she trusts theological clarity over the rush of inspiration. She’s glad if her hymns are more precise than exuberant, more joyous than cheery, more thoughtful than breathtaking, because she banks on the participation of the singer’s interior still, small voice.”

After hearing this sad news, I read through many of her hymns last night. A stanza from her hymn “The Veil Was Thin” stopped me:

And still, God comes to us today
and bids us to agree,
that in a most surprising way,
God’s beauty yet may be.
In faces diff’rent from our own,
in attitudes not ours,
God’s loving presence, grace alone,
will light our darkest hours.

© 2004 Selah Publishing Co., Inc.

She was humble, never assuming she knew better than others, but offered us a window into understanding and questioning our own faith, confident that God’s love and grace would strengthen us.  Her hymns will continue to help light our darkest hours.

Patricia Blaze Clark was born and raised in Pennsylvania in the Roman Catholic tradition and spent eleven years as a member of a Religious Congregation of Sisters. She then became a member of the Episcopal Church, and began writing hymn texts while in seminary. After receiving a Master of Divinity degree from the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, she served for five years on staff at Good Shepherd Church, Austin, Texas, working in the areas of Communications, Spirituality, Liturgy, and Christian Formation. Devoting a good portion of her time to writing, she also directed retreats and workshops and often spoke and taught on various topics relating to liturgy, church music, and spirituality. In addition to an M. Div., she earned a Master of Education degree and a Bachelor of Arts in science. Several of her hymns have found their way into various hymnal supplements as well as anthem settings. She brought to her hymn-writing a longtime love affair with hymnody and poetry.

Clark’s hymn “Welcome to the Garden” concludes with this stanza:

Welcome to the garden, all who smell Love’s peace,
fresh and fragrant flowing, joys that never cease.
No one is excluded, first and last to come;
all may grasp the treasure of the empty tomb.

© 2004 Selah Publishing Co., Inc.

Patricia Blaze Clark has been welcomed to the garden.

http://www.selahpub.com/Choral/ChoralTitles/410-132-AnIrishBlessing.html

“This Suite of very short pieces was designed to serve a number of purposes. The pieces, all of moderate difficulty, vary in mood and texture, and each features a different group of stops on the organ (i.e. flutes, reeds, foundations, and so forth).  The pieces may be used in a variety of ways: they may be excerpted or grouped together in various combinations to serve as voluntaries for a church service; they may be used as teaching pieces; or as a complete set on a recital. The registration indications are suggestions, and may be adapted to best suit various instruments. Creativity is encoraged in this regard, but the primary colors must be preserved.”

The five movements are I: Prelude (for the Foundations); II. Impromptu (for Flutes and Mutations); III. Fanfares (for the Reeds); IV. Lament (for Strings); and V. Epilogue (for full organ).

The cover will include some beautiful pipework photos we requested from Dobson Pipe Organs, so look for it this summer! It will be a very useful addition to the teaching and performing repertoire.

I think the following quote is applicable to church music programs in how we might need to think about planning. Sometimes I find myself in a rut, programming the same pieces without a thought, because it is easy to do so.

“Finally, [to become a designer] a young person with the right talents needs to have infinite desire and never give up. I apply a simple test with young students: smash a teapot into pieces and then hand out the glue. Those who rebuild the teapot won’t make it, those who create phantasy animals and spaceships will.”

Made me think I need to smash a teapot or two, and make more out of what I start with than I am prone to do.

The full interview is at:

http://blogs.openforum.com/2009/04/14/the-inside-scoop-on-design-hartmut-esslinger/

I surely hope all of you survived in good form and have the chance to recover soon.