Every day throughout Advent we are pleased to offer you a little Advent treat. Today we bring you our music ensemble singing “Ding Dong Merrily on High” … More Digital Advent Calendar 2021 Day 10
very day throughout Advent we are pleased to offer you a little Advent treat. Today our friend Andrew reads the Christmas poem “Shepherd’s Christmas” for us. This is followed by the carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem” … More Digital Advent Calendar 2021 Day 9
Every day throughout Advent we are pleased to offer you a little Advent treat. Today we bring you “In the Bleak Mid-Winter”, sung by Maggie’s Music Makers … More Digital Advent Calendar 2021 Day 8
Every day throughout Advent we are pleased to offer you a little Advent treat. Today we bring you a picture of the steadily growing flock of knitted sheep, gathering in the stable … More Digital Advent Calendar 2021 Day 6
Our Digital Advent Calendar for 2021 will begin in earnest on Wednesday 1 December. However, as today is the first Sunday of Advent, here is the Advent Prose – an ancient plainsong chant that takes a series of texts drawn from Isaiah … More Digital Advent Calendar 2021
I have written before that sometimes I hear, sing or play a piece of music and just have to write about it immediately. It can then sit for quite some time waiting for an appropriate time for publication. So it was with this. Written in December 2017, this is the right time: the commemoration of the centenary of the end of the First World War … More Better is Peace (Jenkins 2001)
music: Maurice Greene (1696-1755), words Psalm 65, vv9,12 This article was written for the October issue of our parish magazine. About a year ago, in the autumn of 2020 we had endured a full national lockdown, a summer of somewhat eased restrictions, and were entering a time of less-than-clear tiered restrictions. If memory serves, that … More Thou Visitest the Earth
As it happened, the first anniversary of the Manchester Arena bombing fell on a Tuesday, the day on which the Chorale meets to rehearse each week. May of us would like to have been in St Anne’s Square that evening taking part in the commemorations, but we were committed to our rehearsals. Instead we began with this song, then held a minute silence … More A Flower Remembered (Rutter – words and music, 1945-present)
As regular readers will know, during May and June 2021 Rev Deborah and I ran the Royal School of Church Music’s course, “Inspiring Music in Worship”, during which we decided to hold a special service on our patronal festival to celebrate music and its place in worship in our church. That was on 18 July, and you will have read about it in previous month’s magazine articles and blog posts … More St Margaret’s Patronal Festival Medley (arr. Dalton & Porter, 2021)
2018 has been a year of remembrance with concerts to commemorate the centenary of the ending of the Great War reaching their climax in November … More We Shall Walk Through the Valley in Peace – trad spiritual, arr. Hogan (1957-2003)
St Margaret's Church Prestwich 