Welcome New Year! Each month, I like to present myself as a ray of hope and light. I like to be uplifting with new ideas for music to make you smile throughout the month. This month, that is not so easy. We have rightfully and temporarily pulled back to virtual worship. We have really loved being in person last fall in our hybrid services. It has been awesome creating choir anthems again with in-person singing, albeit masked and distanced. We are ready to start a new piece for the choir to sing. Also, virtual worship requires that we have hymns for you to sing with us at home, and we need to either create them anew or use ones that we already have. We need to go forward, but first we need to pull back and mindfully stay the course. The way forward is to slow down yet continue.
My purpose is to find music to support worship that will help us and you “Live with Intention”. The timing of this theme for January could not have been better. Pulling back may help us create the time to review what is important in order to Live with Intention. Let me give you some titles that we will be hearing this month that may help you affirm what is meaningful to you:
Lift Every Voice and Sing
I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to be Free
What Wondrous Love
Be Thou My Vision
We Shall Overcome
Dark of Winter
Find a Stillness
Come, Sing a Song with Me
Come, My Way, My Truth My Life
Turn the World Around
To Sit and Dream
These times are difficult, but they may be our finest hours. Such times bring out the best in us. I feel better already! Thinking about the actual music is energizing to me. My wish is that it will do the same for you. May it be so!
Music at First Parish in January:
Jan. 16th is our MLK service in which Rev. Sophia will be speaking about the 8th Principle, and the Jan. 30th service will be led by the Worship Committee.
When we can gather together again, our choir will be working on a song from the Stephen Sondheim musical, Into the Woods, “No One is Alone”. Stay tuned for that.
Charlyn Bethell
Charlyn’s professional training has followed two paths: as a professional oboist and as a music teacher and conductor. As Music Director at First Parish, she joins these two paths of her musical life, conducting the choir, coordinating guest musicians, and performing on oboe.