Arts and Music at Redeemer

Janeanne Houston, Soprano, with Organist Sheila Bristow

Janeanne is a wonderful artist who performs in opera and oratorio throughout the Northwest. Her repertoire will include Bach’s Cantata 84, English songs by Finzi and Holst, and a fiery aria from Mozart’s Davidde Penetente. Come celebrate the close of the church year, and invite your friends to experience the arts at Redeemer! Free-will donation to support the music program.

About Janeanne Houston:

American soprano Janeanne Houston is a versatile performer, and one of the Northwest region’s busiest artists. Her extensive repertoire spans the Baroque era to the present. She has worked under the batons of many fine conductors including Gerard Schwarz, JamesDePreist, Sidney Harth, Dean Williamson, Richard Sparks, Christophe Chagnard, and Miguel Harth-Bedoya. Concert works that she has performed many times include Carmina Burana, Messiah, Requiems of Brahms, Verdi, and Mozart, and Mozart’s Mass in C Minor. Also at home on the opera stage, she has sung the roles of Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Susanna and the Countessa Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, Violetta in La Traviata, Blanche in Dialogues of the Carmelites and Micaela in Carmen.

She has recorded many of North Carolina composer Dan Locklair’s songs and vocal works, and in the fall of 2006 she recorded a work titled Lairs of Soundings with the Slovak Radio Orchestra under Kirk Trevor for the Naxos label. A recording of world premieres by living composers titled The Shining Place was also released in 2006, and scheduled for 2009, a Zimbel Records release titled Songs of the Cotton Grass featuring music of Welsh composer Hilary Tann. Ms. Houston gave the East Coast premiere of that cycle on a New York State recital tour in October of 2006. Also that October, she soloed in the premiere of Judith Lang Zaimont’s Remembrance with Portland Symphonic Choir. Other recordings include So Great a Joy (2001), Living Mysteries (2002), The Chamber Music of Dan Locklair (Albany 2004), and So Much Beauty (2004).

The Seattle Times has called her singing “radiant-voiced” and Gramophone, “unfailingly responsive and dedicated.” The Journal of Singing raves “a flawless sense of style.” Performances this year have included the role of the Contessa Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro with Helena Symphony, Brahms’ A German Requiem with Bremerton Symphony, Bach’s Passion According to St. Matthew with Peninsula Singers and the Port Angeles Symphony, and a return engagement to the Messiah Festival of Music and Art in Kansas. In the spring of 2010, she will sing the role of Queen Elisabetta in Verdi’s Don Carlo.

She is the managing and founding member of Northwest Artists and the recording label Elmgrove Productions, and she has been a member of the voice faculty at Pacific Lutheran University since 1989

The anthem for this Sunday (St. Michael and All Angels) is by William Billings (1746-1800), one of the United States’ first “homegrown” composers. He was an itinerant singing school teacher, and the music books published for those schools include many of his hymns and fuguing tunes. Let Mortal Tongues is actually a hymn, arranged for choir by local conductor Jason Anderson. The text is a hearty paraphrase of the reading for the day from Revelation:

Let mortal tongues attempt to sing
The Wars of Heav’n when Michael stood
Chief General of the Eternal King,
And fought the Battle of our God.

Against the Dragon and his Host
The Armies of the Lord prevail:
In vain they rage, in vain they boast,
Their Courage sinks, their Weapons fail.

Down to the Earth was Satan thrown,
Down to the Earth his Legions fell;
Then was the Trump of Triumph blown,
And shook the dreadful Deeps of Hell.

Now is the Hour of Darkness past,
Christ has assumed his reigning Power,
Behold the great Accuser cast
Down from the Skies, to rise no more.

‘Twas by thy Blood, Immortal Lamb,
Thine Armies trod the Tempter down;
‘Twas by thy Word and powerful Name
They gained the Battle and Renown.

Rejoice, ye Heavens, let every Star
Shine with new Glories round the Sky;
Saints, while ye sing the heavenly War,
Raise your Deliverer’s Name on high.

Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, Kenmore invites you to a Choral Evensong service on Saturday, September 13 at 7:30 PM to celebrate the Feast of Hildegard of Bingen. The music for this evening will consist of music by Hildegard and pieces composed using her texts, to be performed by the women of the Redeemer Choir and violinist Laurie Kempen under the direction of Sheila Bristow.

Map and driving directions

Listen to Hildegard’s music at Last.fm

About Hildegard of Bingen (from Wikipedia):

Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as Blessed Hildegard and Saint Hildegard, was a German abbess, artist, author, counselor, linguist, naturalist, scientist, philosopher, physician, herbalist, poet, activist, visionary, and composer. Elected a magistra in 1136, she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165.

She is the first composer with an extant biography. One of her works, the Ordo Virtutum, has been called the first form, and possibly the origin, of opera.

She wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, poems, and the first surviving morality play, while supervising brilliant miniature illuminations.

Attention in recent decades to women of the medieval church has led to a great deal of popular interest in Hildegard, particularly of her music. Approximately eighty compositions have survived, which is one of the largest repertoires among medieval composers.

Hildegard communicated with popes such as Eugene III and Anastasius IV, statesmen such as Abbot Suger, German emperors such as Frederick I Barbarossa, and other notable figures such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.

Many abbots and abbesses asked her for prayers and opinions on various matters. She traveled widely during her four preaching tours, the only woman to have done so during the Middle Ages.

Concerto Baroque, the Northwest’s newest Baroque ensemble, presents a concert of music by Telemann, Fantini, Caccini and Corbett on November 24, the Eve of Christ the King. Selections will be played on musical instruments current to the period in which they were composed.

When: Saturday, November 24 at 7:30 PM

Where: Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, Kenmore

Admission: A free-will donation will be accepted.

Performers:

• Judson Jay Scott, trumpet
• Linda Tsatsanis, soprano
• Stephen Cresswell, violin
• Nathan Whittaker, cello
• Sheila Bristow, continuo

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This past Sunday marked the beginning of the season of Pentecost. To see more pictures of this altarpiece, as well as of the Pentecost dinner and vigil from the evening before, please visit our photos on flickr. (Can you guess that the color for Pentecost is red?)

Saturday evening’s Choral Evensong will be a 7:30 PM service with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, celebrating the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.

• Choral Processional : Allunde Alluya (Traditional)
• Choral Introit: We Have Waited in Silence (Sheila Bristow)
• Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament: When Candles Are Lighted
• Choral Psalm 122 Anglican Chant (James Turle)
• Choral Canticle: Nunc Dimittis (Charles Villers Stanford)
• Canticle: Magnificat (Hymnal 437)
• Benediction: A Song of Judith (Michael Sitton)

Saturday, November 25th - Choral Evensong, Christ the King Eve

• 7:30 PM choral Evensong and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament
• Christ’s mystical presence in the bread of Holy Communion is a focal point for evening psalms, music, readings, prayers, and a time of silent meditation