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thrihyrneI am now listening to Advent/Christmas music, having attended the Lessons and Carols service of the church where I sang for 5 years and worked for the OCM (organist/choirmaster) the last 2 1/2 years of that time. In point of fact, I'm listening to our cd: Christmas at St. George's Sadly, the track I am listening to is one you can't select because it's track #6, the most beautiful one on the CD. Lauridsen, to me, is like listening to Ralph Vaughan Williams; neither of them composed an ugly note in their lives.
L&C was a bit surreal (kinda like Thursday) because I went alone, an ex-chorister, but the service was wonderful and the reception afterwards was like Old Home Week. There is a new choir director to whom I was introduced and then, consequently, re-introduced several times. Seems they want me back. Seems that it's an exciting time, he's raising the bar on expectations, etc. etc. I could be a taker. I miss singing.
There were two highlights to the service: the second was getting to sing my all-time fave Advent hymn in the Episcopal hymnal, #92, "Personet Hodie." (edit, Dec. 8th: That is the tune name, not the hymn title, which is "On This Day") I belted, such as I am able, since for the most part my voice sounds as though I am channeling one of those fabulous boychoir singers in England. Means I can sing Renaissance music in a small group pretty effectively, but I'm not a terribly loud singer.
Highlight #1: the dancers who do exquisite, very tame, very gorgeous dances to some of the anthems. Yes, even in a high-church Episcopal church in the South, this has become an accepted thing. I love it. To see three women's wrists imitating falling snowflakes during the quiet "Still, Still, Still" (a traditional Austrian carol), will bring tears to your eyes. Which made me think about gender again, since I've been reading so much slash recently. It's taken a decade for this congregation to like the dancers, who are all women. What would happen if they put a male dancer in there??
Thanks to [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]'s interesting recent post about liking slash, plus being focused on gender and fanfiction for the past year, almost, now (can it be under a year since I really knew about fanfiction? Seems unreal...), gender weighs heavily on my mind. Is it sacreligious to be making loose parallels in my mind to a fanfiction writer who was thinking of writing a story in which the child of Arathorn and Gilraen (Aragorn) is a woman instead of a man to what would have happened if Jesus had been a woman?
I reckon I'm not the first person to wonder about that.
Happy Advent for those who are celebrating.
L&C was a bit surreal (kinda like Thursday) because I went alone, an ex-chorister, but the service was wonderful and the reception afterwards was like Old Home Week. There is a new choir director to whom I was introduced and then, consequently, re-introduced several times. Seems they want me back. Seems that it's an exciting time, he's raising the bar on expectations, etc. etc. I could be a taker. I miss singing.
There were two highlights to the service: the second was getting to sing my all-time fave Advent hymn in the Episcopal hymnal, #92, "Personet Hodie." (edit, Dec. 8th: That is the tune name, not the hymn title, which is "On This Day") I belted, such as I am able, since for the most part my voice sounds as though I am channeling one of those fabulous boychoir singers in England. Means I can sing Renaissance music in a small group pretty effectively, but I'm not a terribly loud singer.
Highlight #1: the dancers who do exquisite, very tame, very gorgeous dances to some of the anthems. Yes, even in a high-church Episcopal church in the South, this has become an accepted thing. I love it. To see three women's wrists imitating falling snowflakes during the quiet "Still, Still, Still" (a traditional Austrian carol), will bring tears to your eyes. Which made me think about gender again, since I've been reading so much slash recently. It's taken a decade for this congregation to like the dancers, who are all women. What would happen if they put a male dancer in there??
Thanks to [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]'s interesting recent post about liking slash, plus being focused on gender and fanfiction for the past year, almost, now (can it be under a year since I really knew about fanfiction? Seems unreal...), gender weighs heavily on my mind. Is it sacreligious to be making loose parallels in my mind to a fanfiction writer who was thinking of writing a story in which the child of Arathorn and Gilraen (Aragorn) is a woman instead of a man to what would have happened if Jesus had been a woman?
I reckon I'm not the first person to wonder about that.
Happy Advent for those who are celebrating.
