Necessary Roughness

Sunday will be the dedication of the new building for Trinity Lutheran Church in Rock Springs. The building has been under construction since 2002 and has been built primarily by the congregation itself.

My training schedule is allowing me to attend, and I’ve been asked to participate in the morning Divine Service and in the following dedication service. The services will be officiated by Trinity’s pastor, Rev. David Shields, but the music will be led by Dr. Steven A. Hoffman, Kantor of King of Glory Lutheran Church in Cheyenne. I spoke with Kantor Hoffman over the phone yesterday and am looking forward to meeting him in rehearsal Friday night. Organizing Sunday has been a little short of controlled chaos when trying to do it from three hours away.

I attended choir practice Monday. Kantor Hoffman provided a setting to Psalm 84 which involves trumpet, choir as antiphon, and congregation. The choir has been practicing two pieces since before Kantor Hoffman’s involvement. One of these songs has some questionable theology in it as to who builds the church, but all-in-all it should be pretty cool. The dedication service will be held outside weather permitting, with bagpipes and trumpet to announce it to the neighborhood. For a change, I will be singing bass, and without the benefit of a head cold.

I am working on two, maybe three pieces as solos. One is a chilling (in a good way) plainsong, “Jehovah You We Glorify.” The others are two hymns, “How Clear is Our Vocation, Lord” and “Behold, A Host Arrayed in White.” I’ve done “Vocation” before, and “Host” was one of my late grandmother’s favorite hymns. If the performance works out I’ll post “Jehovah” and “Host” here.

I’ve been practicing with the church’s pianist, who is exceptionally talented and perhaps overly so. “Jehovah” has just the melody on the printed page, but the pianist plays accompaniment on the fly and wants to play counter-melodies and such while I’m learning the real melody. I’ll just have to focus on sight-reading the piece and get my part right. I’ve picked up a lot of bad habits it seems, like forgetting to move the ending consonants of words onto the next word so that the vowels are sung.