Music at St Paul

 Easter - Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed - Alleluia! Easter Sunday was glorious! We are thankful for all the musicians who pulled together for Holy Week! During Lent we had Ladies' Trios in worship and are looking for a time for our Men's and Women's Ensembles to meet and sing from time to time. If you are interested in that, contact Deacon Kathleen. On April 9th, our 9:30 Easter Service was graced by the beautiful, musical leadership of Guest Musican extraordaire Donna Derrick. Donna led the congregation in a rousing rendition of "Jesus Christ is Risen Today!" Our 8 am and 11 am Festival Easter Worship Services were greatly enhanced by our Choirs, the Joyful Noise Ringers, Barb and Roger Rollins on Brass, and our String Trio. The Combined Choirs brought the "Hallelujah Chorus" and a more modern anthem arrangement from Lloyd Larson, Chris Tomlin's "I Will Rise" into worship. We celebrated and sang, we heard God's Word and

And Lent continues... We are so blessed to have musicians who love to serve in our community. We are blessed to have parish students who auditioned for Region Band and All State Band. Many of them made one of those groups (and also All State Orchestra). To them and their families, I say congratulations! Well done, good and faithful servant - for continuing to hone the gifts God has given you, to share not only with the ones you love, not only for a grade or at church, but to go out bravely among strangers and share those gifts with others - to be part of something larger than yourself - yes, that deserves a well done! For those students and anyone who did not make one of the bands or orchestras or choirs - in your preparation you stretched yourself, you grew and you reached for something. Keep reaching - we don't always get what we want, but as children of God - yes, as the old rock and roll song says - we get what we need! For God provides in many and beautiful ways. That has happ

 The Transfiguration of our Lord comes just after the halfway point of February this year. We will rejoice on this feast day when we celebrate the words again from God "This is my beloved son!" The music will reflect that joy with different styles at all 3 services.  Feb. 22nd - we  being the church season of Lent. Our Ash Wednesday services will be at Noon with piano and cantor and at 6:30 pm with Choir and String Quartet. The music will include "Lamb of God" - Christiansen "Pavane" - Faure, String Quartet "Sicut Cervus" - Palestrina, String Quartet Adagio from Haydn String Quartet no. 1 and the sombre and joyful moments of the imposition of ashes, and Holy Communion. This is a different pace than the rest of the world and the music helps to set the stage. Wednesdays in March will have Church Suppers at 5:30 pm and the beauty of Evening Prayer at 6:30 pm. There is so much more to come - grab hold of beautiful music this time of year - and rememb

   Christmas Worship and Music at and from St Paul Lutheran Church, Aiken, South Carolina Christmas Eve, Saturday, December 24th 4 pm - Festival Worship St Paul & local instrumentalists: Winds, Brass, and Strings with Youth and Adult Musicians assisting with special music and Christmas Carols, Candle lighting and Holy Communion. Corey Grant, Soloist 7:30 pm - Festival Worship The Joyful Noise Ringers, Combined Service Choirs, String Ensemble, beautiful settings of Christmas Music/Carols and Liturgy woven throughout the service with Candle lighting and Holy Communion. Includes music by Bach, Berlioz, Highben, Kantor and Schalk. Christmas Day, Sunday, December 25th 10 am - one morning Worship Service featuring our St Paul Cantorum, Christmas Carols and Holy Communion  

 What a year we have had!  Thank you to those who came to our Veterans Concert to honor our Veterans on November 7th. The next Concert event this year will be the South Aiken High School on Monday, Dec. 12th at 7 pm - come and hear the Choir and support music in our schools! Meanwhile, we celebrate Christ the King this weekend - Nov. 20th - as we prepare to enter the season of Advent, we talk about this King Jesus - the one who did not come into the world with pomp and circumstance, but as a child - a baby! And we're getting ready to make lots of lovely music about that as well.  And it's almost Christmas! We have Advent 1 on Nov. 27th with a lovely anthem by each Choir at 8:30 and 11:00 On Dec. 4th - the choirs will both sing Come Now O Prince of Peace  by Jeremy Bankson. We will have violin and viola in both those worship services, and Chris Morgan will bring special music to 9:45 worship. So I'll be back soon to write about the rest of Advent and Christmas. As you approa

 Summer - Here we are - more than halfway through Summer. Although Summer won't end until the last part of September, our days have been a little cooler this week and you can almost feel Fall in the air!  Music at St Paul has moved along - as we've sung in and out of masks. The pictures here are from times before and during the pandemic. Through all of this - we've supported each other and I can't thank our wonderful musicians in the church and community enough for all they've done to lift up each other in this craft and art form we call music during these stressful years. Our faith tells us that we are not alone, and when we rehearse and make beautiful music, for some people, that makes it a bit easier to feel that we are not alone - that God is with us! For many of us, it gives us a higher and noble purpose. And for many of us the craft of being in a group, serving, performing, the thrill and love of singing or playing, and being part of something larger than ours