On Sunday, March 19, our 10:30 a.m. service of Holy Eucharist will feature music by renowned American composer, Ned Rorem. Rorem, who died in 2022 at the age of 99, was one of the leading and most prolific modern classical composers in the world. Described as a ‘neo-Romantic,’ his music has a lush, often song-like quality that is immediately recognizable and imminently comforting.
Sunday’s opening voluntary features 3 works from his suite for organ known as “A Quaker Reader,” each a musical interpretation of a quote from famous Quakers. Rorem considered himself a “birthright Quaker who craved Catholic sound.” These works are imbued with the deep mysticism and color Mr. Rorem no doubt picked up through his exposure to the music of French composer, Olivier Messiaen.
At the offertory, the Schola will sing the deeply reverent, wholly sincere “Sing, my soul, his wondrous love,” a lush, homophonic setting of the 19th-century hymn text, set in the Hymnal 1982 to “St. Bees” (hymn no. 467).
