Thursday of Centennial Week

An Evening of Sacred Music in Pioneer Seattle
featuring Cathedral Musicians and Special Guests from 1904

Dr. James Savage hosted the evening musicale. "A century ago, the first music director of our parish, Edward Ederer, hosted weekly Sunday evening musicales in his new home on Capitol Hill. Singers came, violinists came, pianists and organists came, and even a few stray musical priests came and together they made music. They played piano four-hand arrangements of symphonies, they performed opera arias and choruses, they tried out the latest sacred songs and they sang their favorite hymns. From such weekly gatherings emerged the Seattle Symphony, the Cathedral music program and the need for such music schools as Cornish."

Kathryn Weld, Jenny Sokol, and Clint Kraus dressed in costumes appropriate to the era. Their dramatic entrance was greeted with spirited applause.

Father Ryan accompanies "O God of loveliness" on the great organ, assisted by Clint Kraus. The performance met with enthusiastic acclaim and cries of "Bravo!"

Kathryn Weld and Jenny Sokol perform Rosewig's Ave Maria. Dr. Savage remarked: "At the Sunday evening musical gatherings at the Ederer home 100 years ago, surely they was much talk over the punch bowl of the great event that was just around the corner--the ceremonial breaking of ground for the new cathedral that was to be built next to the tiny wooden St. Edward's Chapel--the dream of Bishop O’Dea and the Agens and Baillargeons and the Pigotts and a host of other Catholic dreamers. Such a momentous occasion called for music."

Special thanks to Frances and Mary Beth Kelly for the loan of their Aunt Alice's violin. Alice Fairbairn, then a student at St. Rose's Academy on Broadway, played the violin at the groundbreaking of the Cathedral in 1905. Here, Alice Fairbairn's niece, Frances Kelly, is pictured with violinist Jenny Sokol--and the historic violin!

Jenny Sokol and Howard Fankhauser, with Joseph Adam at the piano, perform C. F. Hanson's stirring "Ave Maria."

The highly authentic title page of our hymnal for the evening.
The hymns sung included "Holy God, we praise thy name"; "To Jesus' heart all burning"; "Nearer, my God, to Thee"; "O God of loveliness"; "Hail, Queen of Heaven, the Ocean Star"; "Hail, Holy Queen"; "O Lord, I am not worthy"; and "Come, Holy Ghost."