St. Mary of the Hills Episcopal
Church in the winter
The choir of St. Mary of the Hills Episcopal Church will present
an Advent/Christmas Lessons and Carols service on Sunday afternoon,
December 21st at 3 pm. The church is located on Main
Street in Blowing Rock.
Based on the familiar Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols developed
from a medieval liturgy by the Bishop of Truro and sung
annually at King’s College, Cambridge, this service
follows the story of the fall of Adam, the promise of the Messiah,
and the birth of Jesus, as told in short Bible readings interspersed
with carols and hymns. Sung in Anglican churches all over the
world since the 1880’s, this service provides a beautiful
transition from the Advent season into Christmas. Though
our present secular world surrounds us at this time with Christmas
‘Muzak’ and exhortations to spend ever more money in
an endless cycle of consumption for weeks before the holiday,
earlier societies viewed Advent as a season of deep introspection
and reflection in preparation to receive the miracle of God’s
love as expressed in the birth of the Christ child.
While the terms “carol” and “hymn” are often
used interchangeably, the two are, in fact, different. Hymns tend
to exhort us, or teach us some point of theology, while the purpose
of the carol - just like the stained glass windows in medieval
cathedrals - is to tell a Bible story in a way both joyous and
reverential. Music for this Lessons and Carols includes the hymn
Once in Royal David’s City, the spiritual I Wanna Be
Ready (Amanda Silverman, soloist), Remember, O Thou Man by
Ravenscroft, This Is the Record of John by Orlando Gibbons
(Denise Story, soloist), Hadley’s I Sing of a Maiden,
Linden Tree carol, Ralph Vaughn Williams’ No Sad Thought
and The Blessed Son of God, I Wonder as I Wander by John Jacob
Niles (based on an Appalachian folk song, Anna Eschbach, soloist),
and Benjamin Britten’s A Boy Was Born in Bethlehem.
The St. Mary’s choir has performed many times with various
chamber orchestras, but its focus remains unaccompanied singing,
and its heart is regular Sunday morning worship and monthly choral
evensong. Dr. James Bumgardner has been organist and Choir Director
at St. Mary’s for 21 years, and has led the choir on several
trips to study with the foremost directors of Anglican choral
music in Cambridge, England, including George Guest at St. John’s,
Stephen Cleobury at King’s, and Tim Brown at Clare College.
The group has been choir-in-residence at Durham Cathedral in England
twice, and has sung services for St. Mary the Virgin in New York
City, as well as representing North Carolina at the National Cathedral
in Washington, D.C.
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