Saturday's concert

On saturday evening at the Church of St. John the Evangelist, the senior, intermediate and junior choirs performed in concert. Our Theresa is a member of the junior choir and appears to be the youngest member. Last September, when she wasn't quite five years old, she began singing with them, but at that time she didn't seem quite to grasp what was going on and what was expected of her. Now she is quite an enthusiastic participant and keeps wanting to play the teaching cassette over and over so she can sing along. In keeping perhaps with Theresa's fascination for foreign languages, the director, Mrs. Susan McKay, a local award-winning elementary school teacher, had her small charges singing in Zulu and Latin. Theresa's favourite by far was O Sifuni Mungu, a southern African rendition of All Creatures of Our God and King. She is still singing it, three days after the concert.

The senior choir sang, among other things, my own Credo in Septuple Metre, a metrical version of the Apostles' Creed set to an original melody with a 7/8 time signature. This was the first time I had heard it sung by a group larger than a quartet. (An organ arrangement of this was played at my inaugural lecture last September.) It was also the first time the trumpet descant, which I composed later, was added. The members of the choir told me they were initially thrown off by the metre, which is common in Greek and Balkan folk music, but not at all in western music. But once they were used to it, they did quite well, I'm happy to say. A most enjoyable evening, all in all.