OUR CHURCH: Worship & Music
Worship
The very heart of everything we do and are at St. Paul's, Rock Creek Parish is worship. Worship is where the community comes together for praise to worship and adore God. Worship is the setting in which we proclaim the word of God and where the Word is made manifest in Sacrament.
Churches often speak of the offering of time, talent, and treasure, frequently assuming the last is really what we mean to focus upon. It is our intent at St. Paul's to offer in worship the very best we can muster, We research, rehearse and prepare, we work, we express through flowers, vestments, the texts spoken and sung, the faith within us and that which we seek to proclaim. We seek to worship as people created in the image of God and enlivened by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
On Sunday morning we offer two services of the Holy Eucharist.
8:00 a.m. Eucharist- This service uses Rite II of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. This service includes organ music, two congregational hymns and sermon. Many attending this service continue their morning together with breakfast and Bible Study in the Dining Hall of the St. Paul's Center.
10:30 a.m. Eucharist- This service uses Rite II of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. This liturgy is marked by strong congregational singing, as well as the excellence of the St. Paul's Choir, a group of select professional musicians under the direction of B. Michael Parrish, Director of Music & Organist. The preaching at this service makes every effort to connect the Gospel to our daily lives, and, like the music, is related to the scriptural themes of the season and the day. The choir's repertoire at this service ranges through the entire history of sacred music-from Gregorian chant to the anthems and masses of contemporary composers.
The Director of Music & Organist
B. Michael Parrish, a native of Lexington, Kentucky, is Director of Music & Organist of St. Paul's, Rock Creek Parish. He was appointed to this position in 2008. A graduate of the School for the Performing Arts of the University of Kentucky, he holds diplomas for further studies from the Royal College of Music, and the Royal School of Church Music. His teachers have included, Robert Quade, Robert Burton, Arnold Blackburn, noted international recording artist Christopher Herrick, Dr. Herbert Howells, and Sir George Thalben-Ball, doyen of British organists. He has served three residencies at Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral in London and recorded two CD's with American choirs while there. His study in England was made possible by scholarships from the English-Speaking Union, and the British Council for the Arts. He is active in the American Guild of Organists, having been elected three times as Dean of the Washington, DC Chapter, the Association of Anglican Musicians, and the Guild of Temple Musicians. Mr. Parrish was appointed to the Loyal Order of Kentucky Colonels by the Governor of the Commonwealth for service to the arts in Kentucky. Mr. Parrish has just completed 18 years of service as Director of Music and Organist of the historic Washington Hebrew Congregation.
The Choir and Congregational Music
St. Paul's Church, Rock Creek Parish has a long tradition of choral and congregational singing as a fundamental component of our weekly principal service. Anglican tradition has always held music as central to our liturgy: the chants, prayers and psalms were transcribed by John Merbecke (a musician and composer for the days of Henry VIII) and his colleagues in English during the early years of the Reformation. In St. Paul's today, the sung service is immediate and accessible, honoring the musical richness of the past and including congregational elements of modern liturgical worship.
The Choir of St. Pauls is a professional ensemble comprised of eight of the Washington area's finest singers. We are blessed to have a wealth of talented artists equally versed in both ancient and contemporary repertoire and with a special affection for the great masters of the Renaissance, so suited to the hospitable acoustics of St. Paul's Church. Our parish history records the presence of professional singers in the choir from shortly after the Civil War. One of our stained-glass windows depicts a singing choir seated around an organ. The prominent placement of this window in the Narthex of the Church proclaims from the start--this is a building in which music praises the Creator.
We are also blessed with a choir in the congregation-regular worshippers who sing the congregational responses and hymns as if inspired by that author of many hymn texts, John Wesley, who wrote: "Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing Him more than yourself or any other creature..."
Music at St. Paul's is not offered as entertainment. The music is an expression of the Church's faith and worship. Performed in a concert setting, religious music so often seems lifeless, removed for that context which endows its most profound meanings. Our goal, then, is to reunite what contemporary culture so often separates, and to allow both the music to adorn our liturgy with sublime beauty, and the liturgy to vivify our music as a vehicle of adoration capable of lifting us from eath to heaven.
The Dobson Organ
The present organ of St. Paul's Church, Rock Creek Parish was installed in 2004. Built as Opus 80 of Dobson Pipe Organ Builders, it was designed expressly for the physical and acoustical space it occupies. The case was designed in the tradition of the Georgian Baroque instruments in England about the time of Christopher Wren. The organ has mechanical key action, electrical stop action, two manuals, 21 registers and 26 ranks of pipes.
GREAT
8 Open Diapason
8 Hohl Flute
4 Octave
4 Harmonic Flute
2 2/3 Twelfth
2 Fifteenth
1 3/5 Seventeenth
1 1/3 Mixture IV
Swell to Great
SWELL (expressive)
8 Geigen Principal
8 Salicional
8 Celeste (aa)
8 Lieblich Gedeckt
4 Gemshorn
2 Flageolet
2 Mixture III
16 Basson
8 Trumpet
8 Oboe
Tremulant (affects entire organ)
PEDAL
16 Bourdon (wood)
8 Open Diapason
8 Bass Flute
4 Octave
16 Trombone (full length)
8 Trumpet
Great to Pedal
Swell to Pedal
|
