October 18th

PRELUDE

Anne Krentz Organ (born 1960) is the Director of Music Ministries at St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Park Ridge, IL, where she is responsible for worship planning, service playing, and multiple choirs and instrumental groups. She has degrees in piano performance and piano pedagogy. Today’s prelude, a setting of the African-American spiritual, “My Lord, What a Morning,” is taken from a collection of reflections she wrote on tunes from around the world.


Ms. Organ writes both piano and choral works. She began to compose when she wanted to introduce more musical variety into a communion service for which she was playing. Describing the art of writing music, she says, “Composing requires a certain mind set—an ability to concentrate very specifically on the task at hand, and yet also to be open to taking an idea in a new direction… Self-motivation plus a deadline is a winning combination.”

WORSHIP THROUGH MUSIC

Shao Ying Low, who wrote the flute/oboe duet played as today’s Worship Through Music selection, is a professional pianist and composer from Singapore who studied in London and Paris. She has performed as a piano soloist and accompanist internationally.

Ms. Low has written for woodwinds, piano (including a piece for three pianos played by six performers), strings and orchestra. She also has written songs for pop stars in Taiwan and Malaysia.

“Dancing by the Stream” was originally written for vocalists as a class assignment, but Ms. Low’s teacher said it was unsuitable for singing. She later revised the piece for flute, oboe and piano, hoping to convey
“dancing and having fun amongst Mother Nature.”


HYMN

The composer of our opening hymn (#400 “I Rejoiced When I Heard Them Say), Bernadette Farrell, is one of Britain's leading liturgical composers of Catholic music and an acclaimed pastoral musician. She is most famous for her song "Christ Be Our Light". Bernadette has always had a passion for social justice and that comes to the fore in many of her songs. Born in West Yorkshire in the north of England, she has lived in London for many years with her husband, liturgical composer Owen Alstott. Currently she is a community organizer for UK Citizens, which advocates for fair housing, a living wage, proper community policing and health care access.

HYMN

Steffi Geiser Rubin is primarily a visual artist who wrote the text for the song “You Shall Go Out with Joy” (#80) in 1975.

POSTLUDE

Anna Bon (1738 – after 1769) was an Italian composer and performer, and the daughter of musicians. At the age of four, she began music studies at Ospedale della Pietà, one of four orphanages in Venice that operated music conservatories. The orphanages were well-known for all-female musical ensembles whose performances drew audiences from around Europe. Antonio Vivaldi was associated with Pietà, writing vocal and instrumental music for performance there.


When foreign nobles visited the orphanages and particularly enjoyed a piece they heard, they might ask the composer to write music for their court. Among Ms. Bon’s works is a set of six flute concerti, written when she was 16 years old and dedicated to Frederick the Great, King of Prussia from 1740 to 1786. A paper written by a Lawrence University student in 1985 theorizes that Frederick, who played the flute, commissioned these pieces after hearing another composition by Ms. Bon performed at the orphanage. 


Today’s postlude is adapted from the fourth sonata in the set.

Ms. Bon eventually moved with her parents to the Court of Esterhazy in Austria, where she composed works for harpsichord and chamber ensembles.