Holy Comforter Music

Church of the Holy Comforter | March 1, 2023

Welcome to the March 2023 edition of the Holy Comforter Music News! We hope to bring you new editions monthly, during the program year.

Learn More About the Music Ministry

Choir helps green Holy Comforter grounds

Volunteers remove invasive species near where new trees will be planted, on a Creation Care work Saturday. Bob Robinson and Peter Feibelman free a native cherry from vines and brambles, while Dennis Hanzlik removes multiflora rose brambles, February 18, 2023. [Photo by Kerry Gilpin]

Trees to help offset carbon footprint of choir pilgrimage to England.

The choir has donated around 15 trees to be planted on the grounds of Holy Comforter, to compensate for the carbon footprint of our trip to England this July, and to honor David Kelley for his work as music minister. Holy Comforter's Creation Care Committee is selecting the sapling varieties and will arrange for them to be planted ahead of Earth Day, when they will be dedicated.


On Saturday, April 22, parishioners are invited to the Ministry Center, beginning at 9:00 a.m., to learn about our Church's journey to net zero, eradication of invasive plants on the grounds, and the new trees. The blessing of the trees by our Rector, the Rev. Jon Strand, near the Labyrinth, will be accompanied by hymns and bells. Around 11:00 a.m., our Senior Associate Rector, the Rev. Ann Gillespie, will lead a meditation on the Divine in nature.


Members of the Adult Choir will fly to the UK in July to be “in residence” at Lincoln Cathedral from July 17 to 23, singing for all the Cathedral services that week. At current count, there will be 34 musicians and family members traveling.

Upcoming Music Ministry Events


March 12: Choral Evensong - 5 p.m.

March 26: Taizé Contemplative Worship - 5 p.m.

Farewell, Faithful Tenor

Adult Choir

Darrel Parke, third from left in the second row, is seen in a portrait of the adult choir in February 2018. [Photo by Chris Spielmann]

“God be at mine end, And at my departing” – Sarum Primer, 1558

At a choir rehearsal in early February, singers had a somber assignment: helping choose anthems for Darrel Parke’s funeral. Darrel, a longtime member of the tenor section, died on January 27 at the age of 79. He had been in choir as long as anyone could remember, and was still attending rehearsals in early fall.


Despite increasingly limited mobility due to MS—diagnosed decades earlier, when he was 39—Darrel still drove himself to doctor’s appointments and to choir well into the last year of his life. At choir rehearsal, “People were keeping an eye on him and watching out for him, so he felt he was safe,” explained Anita Parke, his wife of twenty years. Speaking at the February 9 funeral, Darrel’s niece Kathleen Marks turned to the singers and said: “I want to tell the choir, he loved you all so much, and he really considered you his friends.”


Darrel was shy, and a man of few words, but he loved being part of a group, and using his mind gave him a lot of joy, Anita said. ”He would study things and be super-prepared, and know the philosophy behind it,” she said. He practiced his choir music at home, using a baby grand piano.


Darrel was the first member of the Adult Choir to embrace the Voice for Life curriculum offered by the Royal School of Church Music, once it was adapted for adults, according to Music Minister David Kelley. He worked through three curriculum levels, earning a red ribbon for the RSCM medal that choir members wear on their vestments.


“Because of Darrel’s example, many of our adult singers have worked to improve their skills, and the effect is that the standard for the whole choir has been raised,” David said. “Aside from specific skill benefits, I think the spirit of the group has shifted to incorporate achievement along with singing week to week.”


Other than his dedication to learning and decades of service, choir members recalled Darrel’s kindness in welcoming new members to the tenor section and in praising other singers. Those who knew him best could not say exactly when Darrel joined the choir, but it was well before 1998, according to Anita.


Paul Patton, Holy Comforter’s music minister from 1995 to 2006, called Darrel “the most faithful choir member” he could remember. “I always required people to sign out on this big calendar I had when they were not going to be present on a given Sunday. To my recollection, Darrel never signed out. And when I did pickup choir in the summers, sometimes it was only me and Darrel,” Paul said.


The choir chose “There is a Balm in Gilead,” arranged by WIlliam Dawson, and John Rutter’s “God be in my Head,” to honor Darrel, and about two dozen singers were present to sing them on February 9. At the commendation, Tom and Gretchen Willis sang a rendition of “In the Garden,” a 19th-century American hymn chosen by Anita. Few eyes were dry during this beautiful duet as we reflected on a long spiritual companionship with Darrel, and the thought that the choir may well be present for each of us, at our departing.

Choristers encouraged to use their ‘Voice for Life’

"I will sing with spirit and with understanding" – RSCM motto

Voice of Life Books

One Thursday evening in February, Choristers helped host their parents as Dr. Kelley presented about the Royal School of Church Music’s ‘Voice for Life’ curriculum, upon which our own program is based.


Choristers learn a range of music skills, from scales to rhythm to ear-training and sight-singing. While Dr. Kelley incorporates these into rehearsals, work at home with parental support is needed for Choristers to progress through the curriculum. Singers complete level-appropriate workbooks, followed by testing. Once a level is mastered, singers are awarded a colored ribbon to wear with their RSCM medal.


Dr. Kelley also informed parents about RSCM's Summer Training Course offered to singers aged 10 and above—a week of singing and fun. Past choristers viewed this week as a mountain-top experience and returned summer after summer. At least one of our Choristers will attend the week-long camp held at Kings College in Wilkes-Barre, PA this coming summer.


Meanwhile, we recently welcomed a 15-year-old young man to the Chorister program. We hope more teens, both boys and girls, will consider joining. Men from the Adult Choir have volunteered to join Thursday afternoon rehearsals to sing Tenor and Bass along with changed-voice boys, as their voice part is different from the younger Choristers' treble voice part. Boys with changed-voices, Tenor and Bass, will join those sections of the adult Choir on Sunday mornings after a few weeks of training.

Simple Gifts of Song

“Sing to the LORD a new song” – Psalm 96

The Music Ministry premiered two original compositions—an organ piece and a choral anthem—during worship in recent weeks. We talked to David Kelley about his new works, heard in church January 29 (as the prelude) and February 12 (as the anthem at Evensong.)


Your short organ piece, “Improvisation on Simple Gifts,” plays with the melody and motifs from the well-known Shaker folk song. What do you like most about this piece?

I like the way the harmony shifts in the development section, and also the dramatic arc of the piece. Plus, it’s just fun to play.

Tree of Life

The Tree of Life, "Seen and painted by Hannah Cohoon. City of Peace Monday July 3rd 1854." From The Andrews Collection at Hancock Shaker Village in Hancock, Massachusetts.

What led you to write this piece? And is it still an improvisation, now that it’s written down in a score?

I had played an improvisation on the tune at a funeral service, and afterward Lolly Mixter commented that she liked what I had done with it, also suggesting I should write it down. I only remembered some of what I did, so I went home and sort of re-improvised the middle part, and wrote the whole thing down. There’s definitely a tradition in classical music of writing out an improvisation after it has been played, so I would still call it an improvisation; that said, anytime you write out music, the process of notating it almost inevitably necessitates some revision, for clarity at least, so that does affect it. 


“In the Sound of Song” is an anthem that describes the power of praising God through choral music. Each of its three verses has a refrain of “Praise the Lord, Alleluia!” I’m curious why the organ drops out during the first and third repetition of the refrain, leaving choral chords ringing out unaccompanied.

The beginning of the poem describes the voices entering one by one before the full choir sings together; as those voices enter, they need accompaniment, but when the text says the full choir takes up the cry of “Praise the Lord, Alleluia,” it seemed fitting to the text and for the drama of the piece that the voices should take off on their own. In the return of that material for the third stanza, it again seemed fitting for the voices to have that moment unaccompanied.


It took the choir several weeks to learn this piece, which changes character dramatically in the middle, and contrasts a strict rhythmic pulse in some sections with tempo changes and rhythmic freedom elsewhere. What musical skills did singers work on to master it?

Aside from learning the notes, the rhythms were very important to work on. They aren’t difficult rhythms, but the accompaniment sets up a strict tempo, and the singers simply can’t deviate from the established pulse, so we worked hard to secure the rhythmic drive in the voice parts. In the freer sections, getting the singers into the habit of looking up became very important, and though you’d think they are used to that, the fact is there is often not much to see, since my hands are occupied playing the organ; we had to build the watching bit into the rehearsals so it would become more automatic.


What’s it like to teach your own musical composition, and to hear it sung, just months after writing it?

Somewhat stressful, particularly for an introvert like me. I’m very happy to have people focus on the music, but not always comfortable when the spotlight is on me as the composer. I will say, though, the most significant thing for me is my feeling of deep gratitude that people are willing to invest their time and energy getting the piece polished, and the idea that people like the piece and get something out of it is about as good as it gets!

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