This Sunday we welcome back the Cantabile Vocal Ensemble to present the 4:15pm concert. Their program will include sacred and secular holiday favorites. Cantabile is a group of 12 dedicated, talented young men and women who first began singing together in February 2012.   Most of them are former students at Paul Laurence Dunbar Senior High School who are simply united in their love and dedication to quality music and its vocal expression. In February 2012, they voluntarily approached Donna Bonner, their choral music teacher during their tenure at Dunbar, about the possibility of singing together again. In the ensuing months, they began rehearsing a varied repertoire of a cappella music on a weekly basis and have since been featured guests at several musical venues in and around Lexington. These include Mt. Horeb Presbyterian Church, Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, the Henry Clay Home at Ashland and Woodford Theatre. They are excited about their reunion with director Donna Bonner, who also directed the Dunbar choral music program for 16 years.   Mrs. Bonner, who holds an undergraduate degree in music from Berea College and a Master's Degree in music from Eastern Kentucky University, is also very excited about the opportunity of enjoying a new "musical odyssey" with her former students. 

Notes for Sunday's Music

This week we hear another setting of J.S. Bach's treatment of the chorale tune Nun komm der Heiden Heiland. Last week we heard the ornamental chorale setting (BWV 659), and this week's setting (BWV 660) is a trio in that it is scored for three voices (one played by each of the hands and one shared between two feet). The chorale melody in this setting is even clearer than that of BWV 659 as the main notes fall squarely on strong beats and the basic line is easily heard. The canonic imitation set up by the left hand and pedal contains all of the notes of the first line of the melody, making the vorimitation of this tune clearly audible.

The Anthem "This is the record of John" is English Tudor composer Orlando Gibbons's most famous choral work. As a "verse anthem," this piece features a soloist throughout the work with choral interjections to provide punctuation. By contrast, a "full anthem" is scored for SATB choir throughout with no soloists.

Hymn 438 has gained a great deal of popularity in recent years. The tune dates from 1919 (The Public School Hymnbook, London), and is named after one of the school houses at Gresham's School, Norfolk, England, where the composer, Walter Greatorex, was Director of Music. Benjamin Britten was one of the distinguished pupils of this school in the early part of the 20th century. The text was written in 1961 by Timothy Dudley-Smith while he was serving the church Pastoral Aid Society, a home missionary society of the church of England, and is a metrical paraphrase of the Song of Mary (Magnificat).