This is my last semester in the undergraduate program at the
University of Maine; I will graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Music on May
14. I am also serving as the music
intern at St. John’s and St. Teresa’s Catholic Churches this school year.
This semester I have the luxury of having the time to
practice organ, piano, and singing every day.
This is a great privilege for me.
Mostly I practice the organ for playing at church services and in
preparation for my Senior Project.
About twice a month, I play the organ and prepare and lead
the schola at St. Teresa’s Catholic Church.
Schola is another name for a church choir. This is both challenging and joyful for
me. Hymns are a substantial part of the
music I learn for church services.
Learning hymns and getting them up to tempo is one of my biggest
challenges. I played the organ for
Easter Mass this year; it is the first time I have played for Easter, which is
the most important day of the church year.
My Senior Project is a lecture recital: Organ Music Through the Liturgical Year. I will describe how I choose the organ music
to play for Catholic Services during the different liturgical seasons (e.g.,
Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter). Then
I will play some examples from various seasons.
I will be joined by violinist, Anthony Viselli, and singer, Dan Conte.
You are all invited
to attend my Senior Lecture/Recital:
Organ Music Through the Liturgical Year
Friday, April 29,
2016, 8:30 a.m.
St. John’s Catholic
Church
207 York Street
Bangor, Maine
A reception in the
Church Hall will follow.
I would like to thank Collin Richardson, Assistant Professor
and University Organist at Hampton University, who I met at the 2015 Organ
Historical Society convention. Collin
gave me the idea to focus my Senior Project on music for the liturgical
year. This has worked very well for me because
I can play the pieces I am learning for my Senior Project in church services. As an example, I learned Johann Sebastian
Bach’s Chorale Prelude, Christ Lag in
Todesbanden (Christ lay in death’s fetters) from the Orgelbüchlein. The source of
the melody for this piece is the Easter sequence, Victimae paschali laudes (Praise the paschal victim). I played this triumphant piece as the
postlude on Easter Sunday.
As part of my music internship at St. John’s and St.
Teresa’s churches, I assist Kevin Birch, the music director for St. John’s and
St. Teresa’s, with two choirs: The St.
John’s Youth and Adult choirs. I lead
the vocal warm ups and assist with directing these two choirs. This experience conducting is very valuable
because choral conducting is very interactive and I learn so much by actually
leading these choirs.
Before I began studying music at the University of Maine, I
never imagined that I would write music.
My concept was that people like Bach and Mozart wrote music, and I know
that I am not a musical genius like they were.
In my music theory classes last year, I wrote a couple of short pieces
of music for assignments and realized that I could write music! This inspired me to study music composition
with Professor Beth Weimann, who is an accomplished composer. This semester, I wrote a solo oboe piece
inspired by the Easter Sequence, Victimae
paschali laudes. I also wrote a
vocal piece with words from psalms 42 and 43.
The refrain text is “Like a deer that longs for running streams, my soul
longs for you, my God.” This text is
part of the Easter Vigil and can be used for funerals and other occasions. I am learning a tremendous amount studying
with Professor Wiemann. I notice that I
listen to music differently now. I
listen for interesting rhythms and harmonies that I might be able to use in
compositions. I am just beginning to
write a chamber music piece, which will be the final assignment for this
semester.
