The Bell Choir Is Back!
On April 17, the Bell Choir and I had our first rehearsal together, and learned the first third of the anthem we're doing in memory of Bill Percy May 18. Thanks to Lois Cornell, Wardean Henry, Charlotte Chieffo, Melinda McCormack, Don Sitterley, and Doug Peden for coming out. Each one commandeered not 1, not 2, but 3 bells apiece(!), enabling us to cover the entire treble portion of the chromatic 2-octave range called for in the work's ambitious bell part. Now if Kenny Peden and Skip & Millie Norton join us as well, we'll be able to cover the bass portion of that part as well. Practice will be each Thursday night at 7 from now thru May 15.
My dad plans to join us for the Earth Day celebration April 20, including the anthem "Lost Forever" by Abel Meeropol, and again on Fathers' Day, June 15, for Randall Thompson's beautiful setting of Robert Frost's "Choose Something Like A Star," in which we hope some of the children will join us. This is one of the great graduation pieces - it was sung at my high school graduation, and in every church where I've worked since.
April 27 we're hoping Ward Henry will join us on drums to add what Ted Donovan aptly called "pizzazz" to "A Thanksgiving Garden" by Joseph M. Martin. May 4, Eleanor Garrett and Don Sitterley (flute) will be the soloists in Don Besig's "Every Day Is a Gift from the Lord," originally purchased in memory of Helen Smith. May 11, Mothers' Day (also Pentecost), we're planning to sing Schubert's "Ave Maria," as arranged by the teacher of my teacher (Elie Siegmeister), Wallingford Riegger.
May 18 will be the debut of our new Bell Choir in "Open My Eyes, I Pray" by Lloyd Larson. For Memorial Day weekend, May 25, we'll either sing Harland L. Pinney's arrangement of the patriotic "America the Beautiful" or my arrangement of Earl Robinson setting of Abel Meeropol's ecumenical "The House I Live In," with a slight text change suggested by Ted Donovan (making it even more ecumenical).
June 1, along with Dale Wood's communion anthem "In This Moment of Remembrance," we're planning to sing a few Charles Wesley Anthems by Alice Parker, which I learned of at the last mini-convention of the American Guild of Organists in Brooklyn. Following a joint Nassau-Suffolk chapter anthem reading session in Farmingdale April 18, I'm sure I'll bring back even more new anthems to choose from, like the brand-new baptism anthem we're singing June 8: "Child of Blessing, Gift of God" by Mark Burrows.
Choir practice continues each Thursday night thru June 12. On June 19, at 6pm, members of the Chancel Choir have been invited to join members of the Metropolitan Philharmonic Chorus (who sang with us January 20) at NYU's Tamiment Library, singing "Conscience" (again) and "Lost Forever," both with texts by Abel Meeropol, the man who adopted the orphaned sons of Ethel & Julius Rosenberg, the couple executed exactly 55 years ago at the height of the Cold War. The occasion is the annual meeting of the National Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Case.
In other musical activities outside the church, the next performance of "Five Centuries of Great Duets," performed by my wife Helene and Kathryn Wieckhorst, is Thursday, May 8 at 2pm at the Bethpage Public Library. The three of us and Cary Bair will also be performing my musical revue THE BOOBY TRAP or OFF OUR CHESTS, on the link between bras & breast cancer, as part of Prevention Is the Cure Week, co-sponsored by Huntington Breast Cancer Action Coalition. In 2006 & 2007, during that Week, the work was presented at the United Methodist Churches of Amityville and Islip, respectively. This year, Sat. May 17 at 2pm, we're at Womanspace, at Great Neck Sr. Center, 80 Grace Ave. in Great Neck. Next year perhaps at our church?
Yours faithfully,
(Dr.) Leonard J. Lehrman, Music Director/Composer-in-Residence