Music Notes – Sunday, December 4th:
This week’s musicians are The CIM Quintet, UUCC Pianist Karin Tooley, UUCC Music Director Mike Carney, and The Multigen Choir
This Week’s Guest Musicians
Be sure to arrive early to church this Sunday to hear pre-service music at 10:00 a.m. from our special guest musicians! The CIM Quintet is a group of local students who understand the power of music to change the world! The quintet, which includes Lizzy Huang (violin), Eivissa Pla (violin), Ally Yeoh (viola), Eleanor Pompa (cello), and Fiona Tsang (cello), has formed their own non-profit group, known as Youth Bridging Through Arts (YBTA). YBTA is constantly looking for ways to engage musically with the community, and to make music widely accessible in the Greater Cleveland area. They aim to empower underserved and disadvantaged communities through music, and their long-term goal is to create a sustainable and equitable music outreach education program throughout the Greater Cleveland area that bridges the divide between inequity and access, ultimately providing children with the building blocks not just for music education, but also for self-expression, social-emotional learning, and self-confidence. You can learn more and donate to this worthy cause at https://www.youthbridgingthrougharts.org/
Pre-Service Music: “Allegro ma non Troppo” from String Quintet in C Major – Schubert
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) was an Austrian composer who wrote in both Classical and Romantic styles during his lifetime. Schubert composed symphonies, operas, piano and chamber music, as well as more than 600 lieder (art songs for solo voice and piano) during his brief compositional career. The String Quartet in C Major (D. 596) was completed in the autumn of 1828, just two months before Schubert’s death, and would be his last chamber music composition. This work is sometimes called the “Cello Quintet”, as it is written for a standard string quartet with a second cello rather than the second viola which was more common practice for string quintets of the Classical and Romantic Periods. Schubert’s quintet was not performed or published for several years, but it soon rose to prominence once performers and audiences began to become aware of the work. Don’t be late to church this Sunday, because our special guest musicians The CIM Quintet will perform the first movement of this amazing composition, “Allegro ma non Troppo”, at 10:00 a.m.
Opening Hymn: Let All the Beauty We Have Known – Greeley
“Let All the Beauty We Have Known” features words by Unitarian minister Dr. Dana McLean Greeley (1908-1986), who served as minister for the Arlington Street Unitarian Church in Boston from 1935-1958. Greeley was also the last president of the American Unitarian Association and (not so coincidentally) served as the founding president of the Unitarian Universalist Association. The music for this hymn is a traditional British tune known as Danby. It is found in most Christian hymnals today and like many traditional hymn tunes, it is associated with several different lyrical settings, the most common of which are “The Golden Sun Lights Up the Sky,” “Incline Your Ear, O Lord, to Me,” and “’Tis Winter Now, the Fallen Snow”. Danby makes three appearances in our Singing the Living Tradition hymnal, as #165 “When Windows That Are Black and Cold”, #224 “Let Christmas Come” and, of course, as #326 “Let All the Beauty We Have Known”.
Special Music: Heart Wide Open – Lea Morris
“Heart Wide Open” is a song by award-winning performer and composer Lea Morris (b. 1978), also known simply as LEA. Born in Baltimore to a father who toured the world playing trumpet in the funk band Black Heat and a mother who dreamed of opera while performing with her siblings in the Jones Family Gospel Singers, LEA was singing on the pulpit of the Baptist church where she grew up as soon she could speak. When she discovered the acoustic guitar as a teenager, she began teaching herself to play by writing songs. LEA’s final year in high school in Germany at a classical conservatory, where she sang with the jazz ensemble Black & White and co-wrote with the British pop trio Indigo Wild. Having shared the stage with luminaries including Odetta, Mavis Staples, Dar Williams and Anthony Hamilton, LEA performs at a far-ranging array of venues, including arts centers, universities, festivals, places of worship and beyond. She performs solo and with her band, The Moment. (includes material from thisislea.com)
Centering Music: “Sarabande” from Cello Suite No. 4 in E Flat Major (Bach)
Offertory: “Courante” from Cello Suite No. 3 in C Major (Bach)
Postlude: “Gigue” from Cello Suite No. 3 in C Major (Bach)
Baroque master Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) composed his six Suites á Violoncello Solo senza Basso (Suites for cello solo without bass) between 1717 and 1723 while living in Köthen, Germany. Bach divided each of the cello suites into an identically ordered set of six movements, each movement based on a traditional dance. Sunday’s Centering Music will come from the fourth of these suites (BWV 1010), while the Offertory and Postlude will be excerpts from Suite #3 (BWV 1009).
Closing Hymn: #1020 Woyaya
Written by Ghanaian drummer Sol Amarifio (b. 1938), “Woyaya” (also known as “We Are Going” or “Heaven Knows”) is the title song of a 1971 album by Oisibisa, a group of Ghanaian and Caribbean musicians. The song was frequently heard in work camps throughout central West Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. The word “Woyaya” has no literal English translation but can have multiple meanings, as is the case with many scat syllables, which are a common feature in West African music. The arrangement of “Woyaya” used in our service (and appearing as #1020 in our Singing the Journey hymnbook) comes from Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock.
-Mike Carney, UUCC Music Director
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