 Great Music for Great Cathedrals is a unique St. James Cathedral event. While Dr. James Savage, Director of Music, is the creative and artistic director behind the entire project, some 400 volunteers bring this event to life.  Dick Foley, narrator  This year's Great Music opened with the chanting of the Te Deum by candlelight.  The Women of St. James Schola   The children burst on the scene with a song from the camino to Santiago, Nostra phalans   A rousing Malawian Easter song--"Chimwemwe" asks: "Why are you looking for the living Christ where the dead do rest in the tomb? Christ is risen, now the tomb is empty!" The colorful African fabric was made by nuns in Malawi.      From the 20th-century Cathedral of Our Lady in Limbe, Malawi, we move to the 12th Century and the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. Howard Fankhauser, tenor, sings Peter Abelard's haunting O quanta qualia.  A Great Music standard is Strauss' Feierlicher Einzug. This grand processional has been performed at every Great Music. Dr. James Savage conducts the organ and brass in the West Gallery as the piece begins.      The Cathedral Choir of St. James sings Statuit ei dominus by Arvo Part.  Servers give honor to the symbols of the bishop's office: the crosier, the mitre, and the chair.   A St. James favorite is Franz Biebl's Ave Maria, sung by the men of the Cathedral Choir of St. James.    The Women of St. James Schola sing Ave Generosa by St. Hildegard of Bingen.  The finale of the first half is C. Hubert Parry's I was glad, composed for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of England.    Jubilate! Young Women's Ensemble INTERMISSION  As the second half begins, we travel to the 9th century Hagia Sofia with Kassia's Augustus the Monarch.   At Notre-Dame de Paris, the Office of Tenebrae.  Stephen Stubbs, Theorbo, and Maxine Eilander, Baroque harp   All the choirs join for Biber's magnificent Sanctus, composed in 1682 for the Cathedral of Salzburg    Paris, 1460s: Alma Redemptoris Mater   The Cathedral is bathed in blue light in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary  Suddenly, we move to Tallinn, 1981, and the wonderful Arbos for trumpets, trombone, and percussion  The women of the Cathedral Choir sing Laudi alla Vergine Maria by Giuseppe Verdi    The Organ bathed in red light for Jean Langlais' Incantation pour un jour saint  The finale of the program: a dramatic presentation of selections from Mendelssohn's St. Paul, in honor of the year of St. Paul            |
