Invitation to Holy Week, Easter, and Past Musical Offerings
I am descended from an assortment of Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, and Episcopalians. Interestingly, I have served in all those denominations in my musical career. However, even with a spiritual pedigree, my faith journey did not include weekly church attendance as a child. While both my parents were raised in the church, like many baby boomers, both left the church after high school. I was raised by an agnostic and an atheist, and Sundays were just a lazy day in the week.
Even so, certain members of my family ensured that I was still touched by the church. At six months of age, my parents and I moved from Michigan to St. Louis. My paternal grandparents were prominent members of Manchester United Methodist Church and my grandmother insisted that I was baptized. As my parents weren’t interested in attending a Sunday morning christening, my grandmother arranged for Dr. John Ward, the senior minister of Manchester UMC, to come to my grandparents’ home, where he baptized me in their kitchen.
One of my early memories of the church is attending Easter service with my great-grandma Sylvia in the small Congregational Church in Mounds City, Illinois. In adolescence, I would be brought along to church with childhood friends after a Saturday night sleepover. It really wasn’t until 1994, that I found my way to the church though. I was playing cocktail piano for Dolores Weiss’s 65th birthday party when her friend Bruce Waldron introduced himself. He, and others at the party, were members of Immanuel United Church of Christ in East St. Louis, and they needed someone to direct their handchime choir. I was intrigued and agreed to take on the job, starting my thirty plus year career as a sacred musician.
With almost no background or context of the Christian church and its traditions, I began. I learned from listening. I marveled at the symbolism and Biblical images transmitted through stained glass, and like the illiterate of past times, I learned about a faith from the stories those windows told. I learned from the music. I learned from following others. I learned from studying. Today, those same practices continue to shape and deepen my faith.
In 2000, I moved to Tempe to start graduate school in organ at Arizona State University and took an organist position at Mountain View Lutheran Church in Ahwatukee. Each spring, as part of their Lenten offerings, the director of music, Jane Anderson, would organize and coordinate an extensive Passion Cantata. It was a production, influenced by mega churches of the West Coast that included a large choir, orchestra, and a cast of actors. The music was from recently published cantatas from a stable of composers whose music tended to be popular for a couple of years, and then, thankfully, fade into eternity. Much of the music I played was unmemorable, but I can still sing Sandi Patty’s Via Dolorosa which was part of the Lenten cantata my first year.
Even if the music wasn’t to my personal taste, those Lenten cantatas had an impact on me, transmitting and telling the story of the Passion in a way that brought ancient texts to absolute life. I can still see the man dressed as Jesus, wearing a crown of thorns, carrying a massive cross and covered in fake blood as he walked through the church while the choir sang. Those kinds of theatrics are beyond my definition of good taste, so a bloodied Jesus won’t be walking down the center aisle of Emmanuel any time soon, but those experiences demonstrated the importance of how music can express the drama and power of one of the darkest moments in humanity, Christ’s crucifixion. It was through the medium of the Lenten cantata, that the full meaning of Christ’s sacrifice, of God’s free gift of love to the world, first became clear to me. It was through music, not just simply hearing the Word read to me, that I finally understood.
After coming to Emmanuel in 2010, the idea of a Lenten cantata remained. Fast forward to 2019, when the choirs of The Village Chapel, Brownson Memorial Presbyterian Church, and Emmanuel, combined to offer Bob Chilcott’s St. John Passion on Good Friday. All 550 seats in Brownson’s sanctuary were filled that evening and it was a powerful moment as 60 voices, plus soloists and instrumentalists, told the story of the Passion.
As the choral world began to regroup following the singing restrictions of the Covid pandemic era, I began to think about how Emmanuel, singularly, could offer a Lenten cantata. I landed upon the idea that a smaller scale work, that would not require the expense of hiring an orchestra, but instead use only the organ and soloists, could be offered as part of our Bach’s Lunch Recital Series. In 2023, the Emmanuel Choir offered The Seven Last Words of Christ by Theodore Dubois, in 2024 Sir John Stainer’s Crucifixion, in 2025 Charles Wood’s St. Mark Passion, and this year, John Maunder’s Olivet to Calvary.
These passion cantatas have challenged the choir and aided them in growing their musical abilities, all the while strengthening our bonds of faith. They have brought the Passion to vivid life through music to our parish, retelling a 2,000-year-old story with freshness and fervor.
I was completely unaware of Maunder’s Olivet to Calvary until a comment was left on my YouTube channel of our presentation of Stainer’s Crucifixion in 2024. The viewer noted that their parish choir would sing the Stainer every other year, alternating with Maunder’s Olivet to Calvary. Intrigued, I ordered the piece and studied the work, and quickly determined that it would be our 2026 presentation.
The choir began work on the cantata in the first weeks of January. By late February, the work really began to take shape, the music became refined, and what the choir and guests offered to the world on Friday was an authentic and powerful telling of the Gospel Passion. It affected me more profoundly than any other Lenten cantata that I had been a part. When soloist Benny Edwards, serving as one of the narrators, sang, "And He bowed His head and gave up the ghost." I almost started sobbing uncontrollably. It took every bit of grit and determination to hold it together, and it wasn’t until I was twelve or thirteen measures back into the music that I was certain I could continue.
If you didn’t attend Friday’s performance, you missed something. However, the opportunity is not lost forever. I invite you to experience the power and depth and breadth of the music by watching the recording now available on my YouTube Channel at the following link:
If you watch on your phone or computer, headphones provide the best audio experience. If you prefer to stream to your television, then I suggest engaging any in-home theatre speaker system you might have connected to appreciate the work to its fullest.
Our parish will offer beautiful and moving liturgies over the next week. I invite you to make it a priority to follow the cross, to follow Jesus, and to experience the true and real story of our salvation by attending all of the services in the coming week, starting with this Sunday’s 10 A.M. Palm Sunday service, and then continuing with the 6 P.M. Maundy Thursday service, the 12 Noon Good Friday service, and the joy of resurrection on Easter Sunday at 7 A.M., 8 A.M., or 10 A.M. I promise you that the time and effort to journey to the cross together will bless you immensely.
If you want to experience the Passion deeper through our past musical offerings, they are available here:
Seven Last Words of Christ by Theodore Dubois (2023):
Crucifixion by Sir John Stainer (2024):
St. Mark Passion by Charles Wood (2025):
None of this would be possible without the dedicated members of our Emmanuel Choir, the Choristers, the support of our parish, the financial gifts made specifically to the music ministry, the gifts that made possible our glorious C.B. Fisk pipe organ, and a community that loves and appreciates music. Thank you.
These performances and much more are available on my YouTube Channel. Please like and subscribe to find sacred music that you will appreciate and to keep up with new postings.