SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good day, and welcome to North Raleigh United Methodist Church behind the scenes podcast, where we sit down weekly and discuss scripture and sermon for the week. My name is Kevin Van Hall. I serve as the host and moderator for the group. The group being the clergy and staff here at North Raleigh United Methodist Church. I emphasize the staff part because we have special guests joining me today. Unlike our senior or associate pastors talking about the sermon, we have a special service coming up for Palm Sunday, this Sunday. It's a cantata. I have the music people, excuse me, I can't talk, the music people here. Just like we talked about the cantata at Christmas, they're going to talk about the upcoming cantata here at Easter. Have Andy Eaton, our music director, and Brett Pardu, our artist theologian. And moved into part-time to full-time now, organist. Yes, you're stuck with me. We're happy to have you. We're lucky to have you. We're lucky to have both of you. And I want to thank you both for coming in and sitting down and talking with me today. Our listeners get a great opportunity to get the behind the scenes, is what we call it. Sometimes we get a little insight into the sermon that the pastor might be preaching on Sunday. And it also gives me an opportunity to ask them questions because on Sunday, when you're sitting there and enjoying it, it's not an opportunity to ask any questions. So I'm going to ask you guys some pointed questions, help. Maybe somebody out there has a question about a cantata. And hopefully we can try to address that a little bit ahead of time. So last week I was with Laura and we were talking about can these bones live? So we are finishing up Lent. We have Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. Holy Week starts in just a matter of days. And it gets busy around here with all the services. And I know the music department is extremely busy as well. And that's why you guys are here. So today we are going to just talk about this Palm Sunday service and a cantata. So let's start off with exactly remind all of our listeners what is a cantata. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

So a cantata is really not that mystical of a thing. It is just, especially in this context, it is a multi-movement work, which means it basically has a number of different songs that are intended to be sung in sequence as one big unit. So kind of like a symphony is an opportunity for an orchestra to play four movements or so that are all connected by a theme. A cantata is an opportunity for a choir, usually accompanied by instruments, to do the same thing, to kind of tell a story over the uh the length of a few songs rather than just a single song.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

So you talked about, you mentioned orchestra symphony. So we have quite a few musicians coming in to help with this. Yes, we do.

SPEAKER_03 3:07

How many do we have?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Uh so we will have uh this is this is the biggest since I've been here, uh, biggest orchestra since I've been here. We'll have 20 pieces, and um we'll also have an opportunity to feature uh Andrew Menea, who is a uh professional uh operatic baritone. Uh funny story. Last year, uh gotta be at least 10 months or so ago, I got the idea that I'd I wanted us to do this primary work, which is the five mystical songs by Rafe Von Williams. It's a fabulous uh English piece. I know people don't like Latin, so it's English this time. So you gotta come. You'll understand the words. No translator necessary. Exactly. But I knew I wanted to do this work, uh, and it's a very special work to me. Uh it's it's one that I've sung before, and so I knew I just needed a killer soloist to be a part of this work. And so I went to the North Carolina Opera's website, saw who was playing the baritone lead in their uh production that lined up best with our dates, and reached out to that person's agent. So this was my first time talking to an agent. I felt like I was uh You're a PR. I know probably PR. So that was a great opportunity. They were great to work with, and um so he got permission from the opera company. Sometimes they can be territorial if you're in rehearsal process. So he got permission and got the okay to come and sing with us on Sunday, which should be really, really exciting.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

So we're gonna have a soloist as well as Oh, yeah. And we're gonna have one.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

The soloist is the main voice in the in the cantata and sort of acts as it's set kind of as the voice of the soul interacting with the voice of God and the the person's experience of God. So it's an interesting um progression too through throughout. And and I love the way this ends. You know, when I think of cantata, a lot of the times I think of um, I mean, people like Joel Rainey who are who are doing modern compositions and beautiful text and it ends triumphantly. This is more reserved. This is um, it ends with a setting of Christ or the spirit sort of setting the table and inviting um inviting the the person into uh into communion, into sitting down at a table in a simple, kind of restrained way. It's beautiful. I want to thank Andy for programming it too, because I'm fascinated by the fact that we are performing a piece by an agnostic composer from the from the turn of the the 20th century who wrote primarily for the church and for to inspire the singing of praise of the church, um and a text setting from a 17th century priest. Um so it's just interesting to me now that we're performing this this piece in the 21st century in with an orchestra at North Raleigh United Methodist. I think it's um it's cool. Yeah. Looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Sounds quite impressive. I didn't realize it was so big. I didn't realize we had such a guess. Well, is he famous?

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Yes, he is, he sung at the Met, right? He's covered at the Met. He's he's sung just about everywhere. Uh I when I was when I was in contact with him over the months, you know, leading up to this, it uh there would be a lull between emails and he'd play, sorry, I've been in London doing this. Sorry, I've been in he's he's he's uh internationally known singer.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

And he is welcoming, and obviously we'd love to have him, but I'm surprised that he's making the time to come to us.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Well, so he actually um I think were it another piece, he probably he might not have because uh when I reached out, uh his agent said, actually, this is one of his favorite works, and so it's really kind of just an opportunity to do one of his favorite things. So um I think the fact that we are doing this this work in particular had is might have been what what uh got him here. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Yeah, Vaughn Williams has several pieces that are kind of bread and butter for lyric baritones. So it it's it's fun to sing and health and feels healthy to sing. We probably both a lot of teachers in in music school who are working with young voice students, you know, baritones or baritender sort of transitioning, will assign them uh Vaughn Williams and and even a piece from this, and particularly the call is is really well known as sort of standard repertoire. So and um I'm also making my global uh harp debut. That's my universal harp debut. Wait a minute. Organist and now on the organ. On the organ, but there's this a fancy synthesizer button that'll help us out.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

So we'll be playing the organ keys, but it'll come out of the harp. So if you're confused while listening, um there's your answer. There's the real behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

I'm gonna look forward to it. I'm gonna be well, I'm actually working the soundboard in the past, so I'll be looking forward to that more. Hopefully, I get a heads up. I don't think we could do anything. So, but I know I need to set up a solo mic now, not just for musicians. We have a soloist.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

And Brett's uh wife is actually gonna be singing a solo as well. Totally different time. This is um, I'm excited. This is a uh my approach to you know music selection is usually the uh uh shotgun approach, as it were, so that uh there will be something for everyone is always the goal.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Setting a wine table. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Well said. Um and but so we'll we'll early on have uh solo by Allison, which is just a spiritual, just full of soul and longing, and then uh we'll transition and eventually we'll have an another soloist who's that bear tone we've talked about already, which will be triumphant and uh operatic and very different in style. Um, but we have we have a uh a wealth of of talents that we're gonna get to showcase, which I'm very excited about.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

It sounds very, very impressive. I can't wait to to see it in person. It will be uh broadcast and live on YouTube in our standard uh streaming services as well. It'll be at the 8:30 and 11 o'clock service. The uh contemporary service 945 will actually hear Laura preach over there because they had a special music program last Sunday. But this Sunday is Palm Sunday. The cantata on a Palm Sunday, is there a reason why we do it on Palm Sunday or just happened?

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Um, well, so I it is first off, I'll just say it's it's what I inherited, so it's what I do. Um that's one piece of it. Tradition is that's the tradition here. Um, but I think there's a number of reasons to do that. I think uh a logistical reason is that it's easier to find musicians on Palm Sunday than Easter. So there's uh a logistical reason, but I think it's also a a good place because it kind of allows us to launch into Holy Week and it allows us to uh, in a way, kind of tell the full story of Holy Week if we need to musically. There's a lot of music that's beautiful for Good Friday, a lot of Palm Sunday music's beautiful, a lot of Easter music, and we can't always fit all of it onto the date it was specifically written for. So this allows us to have a day where we set aside to celebrate, I think, really Holy Week in its entirety, uh, just through a musical lens. And so do you have any thoughts on that, Brett?

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Um nothing in particular. I mean, I would also just add the logistical piece that you mentioned earlier, too. It's in this season, musicians are difficult to find. And so Palm Sunday tends to be um frankly, just kind of a convenient time for people to get together and in this kind of on this scale with a large orchestra. So from a from a church well, it gives you also the opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

We have a sunrise service on Easter as well. Oh, yeah. Some people like to do the sunrise service as well. A traditional Sunday service at 11 o'clock, and then going out to brunch, and all the people have to wear on Palm Sunday. It I like how you mentioned it, Andy. It's the launch of Holy Week. It reminds me of the whole triumphal re-entry when Jesus is coming in to Jerusalem and the palms are waving and they're and they're singing.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Another reason I like this choice that Andy made because it doesn't end triumphantly. It it does kind of leave us sort of with this feeling of okay, there's going to be resolution. Um, and we know that comes at the end of Holy Week. So I love the resurrection kind of themes in there.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

So a little bit more about this piece then that you chose. Uplifting or sad? Or is it go to and fro?

SPEAKER_01 12:13

So um I mean, there's there's the the piece itself, um, the soloist part does end uh very, very tenderly with the uh invitation to communion. The what I love about the piece, and if you look at the uh kind of footnotes-ish in the bulletin on Sunday, you'll see this too, is it's really about a person's journey to accepting God's love, is really um what what so much of it is about. Uh the I believe it's the fourth movement in particular, is one that uh it's it's it paints this scene of uh dinner table, and you get invited in, and it's love that calls it calls God love throughout this. And so love bade me welcome. Uh, and over and over again, uh love says, Is there anything you need? And and the person says, Oh, I just someone worthy enough to be here. I'm not worthy to be here. And love says, It's not about that. And the whole journey of it is that uh we do play a part in the love of Christ, and sometimes that part is just accepting that love, which seems and sounds so small, but uh can be very significant and transformative. And then after that, the last movement of that one is of the the cantata proper, is called antiphon, and it is takes the scope from personal, which is why I think this piece is written as it is, where it has a baritone solo throughout with choir. The baritone solo serves to demonstrate how this is an individual journey that each of us is on, and then the final movement is just choir, and it is the slam bang finishes of slam bang finishes, let me tell you. It is just rip roaring, let all the world in every corner sing My God and King. And if they say that one time, they say it a dozen. It's just, it's just over and over. Uh, it's it's really just a cell, a beautiful celebration. Um, and then the uh after that we will do a beautiful, much smaller scale piece uh by Karen Moroli called a Hosanna for our time, which really takes the idea of Hosanna and of you know God help us and makes it uh aspirational in a really beautiful way. I really I did there are no notes alongside that one in particular. Most of the pieces I couldn't help myself, but write some notes on the side uh in the bulletin. But that one, the text itself is self-explanatory. So uh hopefully it'll be aspirational. Hopefully it will uh walk through a journey of uh of gates. Uh also in the bulletin, I'll talk about how this is the one Sunday we sure do talk about gates a lot, right? You know, uh fling wide the gates, lift up your heads, oh ye gates. And uh gates are sort of the barriers we choose to put up, is how I've kind of chosen to interpret it. And uh hopefully the the journey of this cantata Sunday is that we're reminded that gates are better left open, and that it is not our job to limit or confine what God can do through us and through those around us.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

So scripturally, I think of Christ saying He is the gate and flinging wide open to all that all might live. So it does and an unbridled joy in a really beautiful way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

So is this piece written specifically for an Easter uh service?

SPEAKER_01 16:08

I would say it was probably uh its original composition. I don't necessarily know if it was specifically for Easter. The first poem that is set is called Easter, so it's certainly an Easter piece. Um I don't know if it was composed for a specific Easter service.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

I don't know that much, but but the text lens itself, I think it's portable in that way.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

It was a devotional text written by George Herbert in the 1600s, who's a priest and poet and scholar, and um it's been adapted beautifully. It doesn't resolve in the same way that our ears are used to in Western music. It's um Do you know what I mean, Andy? I mean, so Von Williams uses is sort of famous for for relying on on different modalities, particularly pentatonic scale. So there's sort of a swell and kind of a resolution, but it it doesn't the endings don't come the sort of the way you expect necessarily for for a lot of the music we would program in in mainline churches.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

He's a very he's an interesting composer because his he clearly has a passion for the music of the church, but he also had a very uh distinct passion for folk music. And so Brett mentioned pentatonic, and most folk music is pentatonic, and that's just the scale of bum bum bum ba da da da da da just pentatonic penta meaning five. So there are just five notes in that whole scale, but a lot of our hymn tunes are pentatonic, a lot of old, if you can think of a folk song, are in that pentatonic mode. Uh, and so Von William does play a lot with that because uh of his interest in folk music. I think it's he he does a fabulous job as a composer of uh making music that uh is satisfying and tuneful because of that folk connection, uh, but is also kind of dense under the surface, so that if you're a really uh uh sophisticated musician, you you hear his stuff and gosh, there's always something new to discover. But on the bass, it still is uh beautiful. Um so he he combines those two things really, really lovely.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Well, thank you for for that explanation I was gonna ask, if you could explain that so that makes it very, very clear to me as a person that loves music but doesn't studied music and totally understands it. So if I uh come to church this Sunday and hear this cantata, and the last uh time we'd spoke and we talked about the cantata at Christmas, how is this gonna be different or similar? What would I expect? Would I expect something like I saw at Christmas time, or is this something completely different?

SPEAKER_01 19:04

I mean, it'll be both. Um it'll be um it'll be different in that I think you'll experience more new music at this than you did at Christmas. Christmas this last year was really a celebration of all the tunes and carols that you have known your whole life and hearing those in new ways and together in different ways than you've ever heard. A lot of this, though there will be, of course, you know, we'll do congregational singing, we'll um do all the tunes you know and love and expect on uh Palm Sunday, it'll be a lot of music that uh hopefully takes you on a journey that's more new, um, that is more unique, maybe uh than than Christmas was. So the same and different. Same and different.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

I know it's gonna be bigger. Yeah, yeah. 20 pieces, um, and we got a harp that's gonna be here, we'll hear it and look for if angels find it.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

You wonder where the harp's coming from, it's coming from the heavens, of course. Angels, angels from above. How about what are the other instruments?

SPEAKER_00 20:15

What are the other uh instruments? Can we expect?

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Yeah, um we'll have a full string section, so violins, violas, cellos, double bass. Uh we'll have two French horns, two trumpets, trombone, percussion, uh flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and I think that's and of course, you know, piano, organ, and so that's it's it's a pretty full chancel up there.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

So so Brett, organ and piano?

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Yeah, running back and forth, and synthesizer, which would be the harp, yes. So I'll bring my roller skates.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Yes. So some is it more piano or is it more organ?

SPEAKER_02 21:05

I'd say it's about half and half, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

So um yeah, yeah, looking forward to it. So a little bit of uh back and forth, all-encompassing um say music. Well, I'm I'm looking forward to it. I'm excited. Um we've already started setting up for the stage for it. It's it's gonna be impressive. We have a beautiful space for it. We have great acoustics inside. Um, it will be much better as most live venues are if you can actually come to hear it on person versus trying to uh hear it afterwards. We know that everyone is able to do that, so it will be both services in the early and the 8 30 and the 11 o'clock. So hopefully you can come out to truly experience it. It sounds like it's gonna be quite an experience. Yeah, we're really excited. I'm looking forward to it. I know everyone out there as well is looking. for it it has turned into a big tradition here at North Raleigh for the uh cantatas and this one sounds quite exceptional with the uh with a special guest singer yeah soloist yeah it'll be I think I think it really will be a special uh a special cantata certainly in in in my time here I'm very excited um I'd ask for some last comments some other things you might um want to add uh look forward to other than just thanking Andy for the selection if you haven't heard Vaughn Williams and particularly if you haven't heard five mystical songs I I highly recommend coming out um I think you'll be blessed and you'll find your spirit is stirred.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Oh yeah. Uh the only things that I would say uh is just kind of looking ahead to Holy Week a little bit is um if Palm Sunday is not something that can work for you or if it is something you can make and you want a little more music to help you get into the spirit of Holy Week the music department will be leading the Good Friday service uh at 7 p.m uh that Friday before Easter as well which should also I'm very excited should be a really um very different atmosphere. That one you asked if it's gonna be uplifting or not that one is it's Good Friday y'all we're gonna we're gonna go to the place where it happens as much as we can emotionally and yeah it's odd that we call it good that come service at Tonray service is very can be very dark yeah uh at times. And so so I'm excited for that one we'll do um some a work by Mozart uh beautiful Lloyd Larson arrangement and I composed something for it as well which should be which I'm very excited to hear the choir do. So um and you'll even get to hear Brett sing some I know you've missed it. Oh wow great oh yeah yeah and how fortunate are we to have a composer in residence perfect perfect oh and he's written some great songs just uh going to Alex and Duke's uh our previous pastors uh going aways were great oh yeah yeah that's great I forget that that's what I'm known for more here is roast songs that would pass it they're just more memorable that's all they're just more memorable so cantata are we gonna just talk about this again at Christmas is there ever an opportunity to do one another time during the year well I I there's there are there's an opportunity every Sunday and every day however um I do worry there might be a revolt because the choir's been working really hard they have they have put so much into this and uh we are so lucky to have such a dedicated group um so thank you to the choir and we also and you'll see in the orchestra uh this Sunday you'll see a lot of familiar faces there too we have a lot of talented instrumentalists that have volunteered their time to uh be a part of that orchestra which will also just uplift everything that we do so oh perfect outstanding again looking forward to it I hope you can come out and join us uh this Sunday at either the early service or the afternoon service so we'll go ahead and wrap up uh today's uh podcast want to thank you both for being here giving us some good insight what to expect this coming Sunday getting us excited for it I'm excited um to hear it and quite a production so that's that's a good word for it it's a it feels like a production this year I know you'll be front and stage there conducting the whole thing won't you Andy?

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Uh-huh so Andy's gonna be front and center and uh Brett's gonna be running back and forth between the organ and the piano so come out and see us so I hope you can and then uh maybe next week we can get in another podcast uh it's very busy with Holy Week going on um but please join us uh next week as we uh go into the last uh services of Monday Thursday service then Brayana Friday and then of course Easter service so until then may the love of Christ be with you always so goodbye everyone