What does summer bring?

by Kristin Lensch, Organist-Choirmaster

 

We are knee-deep in summer now. It’s hot and humid. Memorial Day and school seem long past. In Calvary’s music department, we lost the weekly rhythm of Wednesday night dinners and choir rehearsals last month. We won’t have Evensong until next fall.

 

However, we still have the 10:30 a.m. Sunday morning service to lead! We must still learn an anthem to sing at the offertory, and for this we have Summer Choir! But this is light on commitment, which gives the opportunity to bring new and familiar faces into the mix. Summer Choir is a one-and-done. Just show up on the Sunday you’re available. Consider joining us at 9:30 in the choir room for it!

 

So, what does summer bring? A relaxed pace? Hmmm… yes?

 

And no.

 

Different things. Inspiring things.

 

Calvary’s three organists will be busy this summer in different ways. Yes, three! Me, Jackson, and Zoe Bondi.

 

Zoe has been taking organ lessons from me for the past three years and has been playing hymns, preludes, and postludes at the 8:00 a.m. service. Zoe has been fascinated by the mechanism of the organ as much as the repertoire for it. She has even helped me fix wind leaks that cropped up in our very cold winter! Because of her great interest, she will apprentice with the organ company that helped restore our organ. She will live in Boston and work with the Spencer Organ Company for a month. I’m so excited for her.

 

Jackson will be going to two conferences this summer. He’ll be in Atlanta this month for the annual conference of the Association of Anglican Musicians (AAM). It is an incredibly inspiring week of worship, concerts, and social time with fellow Episcopal colleagues from coast to coast. Worship is a central element of the conference, giving those of us who are always leading it a chance to just sit in the pew and experience it. He’s also attending the bi-annual national convention of the American Guild of Organists (AGO) in St. Louis. During the year, Jackson serves both organizations. He is the Chair of the AAM Grants Committee and the Dean of the Memphis AGO chapter.

 

I’m writing this on the way back to Memphis from Hilton Head, SC. For the last two years, I’ve been serving as the Southeast Regional Ambassador for the AGO, the largest national professional organization of church musicians. (Our organ was the cover feature of the AGO’s monthly journal this past March.) I have been serving as a liaison for the fifty-two chapters in the Southeast Region. This past weekend I assisted a chapter with their Organist Weekend, a weekend devoted to educating children and teens about the organ, and played a recital at its conclusion. I will also be going to the AGO convention in St. Louis to conclude my term as the SE RA.

 

The thing I’m looking forward to the most, however, is serving as Musical Director of a summer course for girls and adults called the RSCM America Carolina Course, based in Raleigh, NC. Calvary is a member of the RSCM America: the Royal School of Church Music America. The RSCM America sponsors four courses a summer. I literally “grew up” as a professional musician by attending and working for the course in St. Louis for twenty years. It’s an intense week of rehearsing and learning music to sing services of Eucharist and Evensong. I will be preparing the choir for and directing the services held at Duke University Chapel at the end of the week.

 

All three of us are about to immerse ourselves in experiences with colleagues. Renewing and establishing new friendships, exchanging ideas, worshiping, working together—these are sustaining and life-giving experiences. We will be glad to return to Calvary renewed and uplifted.