Palm Sunday / Easter Concerts
In some spring seasons at RCC, a special Palm Sunday / Easter concert was presented in full production: one hour and 40 minutes in length, and all the stops pulled out. As always, it was a full house audience, the publicity having been citywide, and people converged from all over the county: RCC was, by this time, a well known destination for the choral arts, and for eclectic and enjoyable concerts. We also presented an ancient music concert in the later spring. This Palm Sunday Concerts featured music in addition to our Palm Sunday morning and Easter Sunday morning music. One aspect of this concert: a lot of gospel presentation.
Sing Hallelujah to the Lord: This praise song starts off in Am, modulates to Bm, then ascends to Em, and Ron Hack takes the high lead solo. MR is singing lead in the lower keys and playing guitar. Diane Maltby is on piano. Ron, by the way, was with MR at the erstwhile West Kendall Presb. Church (PCA) over a year before this date. That church ceased to be on the last day of 1989: MR came to RCC as music director 1 month later.
Easter Sunday, March 31, 1991
an in-house mini-concert
King of Kings: This praise song features accellerandos.
Worthy Is the Lamb That Was Slain: The choir and congregation sing this well-known anthemic praise song by...?... I forgot; maybe Diane can remember. When I go online it shows me the wrong songs of this title.
Jesus Christ Is Risen Today - Introit - arr. MR: The choir and brass ensemble are featured. Jan and Kent Pettigrew (RIP) are playing trumpets. The low brass is a trombone played by MR, and a euphonium.
Alleluia, Now Be Thankful: The only known recording of this Eastertide anthem.
Now Glad of Heart: The RCC Choir reprised this towering anthem in the Night of Ancient Music concerts, and one can see the leaps and bounds in the choral arts (the women were always spectacular!..it was mostly the men who grew in knowledge).
Here the synth does a great job playing to Diane's piano, with MR sounding the cornamuse, an ancient Renaissance double reed. Hear another version by the RCC Choir in 1994 here ---------->
Diane Maltby is at the piano; MR again, plays the cornamuse. The choir is tremendous.
Was It a Morning Like This?: Katie Anderson, soprano, sings this fine
contemporary Christian song. with an Easter message
Alto cornamuse
Hallelujah! - G. F. Handel: The RCC Choir has at least three more performances of this most well-known oratorio
chorus in music history. One of them is with only early instruments - recorders, viols, harpsichord, portative organ and sackbut (Bach to the Future, 2000), one is with strings and brass, and a powerful choir (Messiah - 1998), and the third is with Diane alone at the piano (Easter, 1994). There's even a fifth performed within a "Christmas Messiah," but that did not survive the fumbled attempt to record the concert. Perhaps four are sufficient.
Palm Sunday Concert - 1995
He Is Not Here! - A fine contemporary Christian choral anthem with a towering Easter message.
Jesus Paid It All: a well-written anthem that calls for seamless unisons as well as lush harmonies. The choir has both skills in hand: this is one of the finest choral performances ever recorded during MR's career; both the choir and the recording were flawless: listen especially for the final choral note, a pure unison in all voices; excellence in unisons is, choral arts-wise, rather under-appreciated.
Behold, the Lamb: Katie Anderson sings the haunting solo in this well-known contemporary choral anthem.
Calvary Covers it All - MR came to know this old gospel song on tour with the Spurrlows during the early 60's. An alto solist (and also the pianist), Marilyn Dunn, who has gone on before us, sang it in the special concert called "Splendor of Sacred Song," usually held in large auditoriums. MR would
stand backstage and listen to this haunting tune, and he memorized it for later days after tour. This is his arrangement, and for guitarists, it's sounding in D, but MR is playing in C, capoed up two frets. You can read the marvelous story of the gospel song at this URL: https://wordwisehymns.com/2013/06/19/calvary-covers-it-all/ It concerns the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, and the co-director in those bygone days, Ethyl Taylor, who wrote the song in the mission chapel, just following the conversion with a well-known singer-dancer of the '30's (Walter "Happy Mac" MacDonald). The phrase "Calvary covers it all," was said to him in response to his lament that God couldn't save someone as sinful as he was. This is from the Palm Sunday Concert, 1995, at the Redlands Community Church. Diane is playing organ.
Lamb of God: This is John's song, his arrangement, his stellar tenor voice and his piano accompaniment: on this beautiful duet,John Flynt teams up with Becky Spence who led the sopranos at the top of the choir for all 11 years at RCC; to have both of these talented soloists able to sing at this
high level of excellence was a blessing and a matchless resource; it virtually allowed the choir to accept any possible challenge. Becky had a three octave range and excelled in the early music idioms: oratorio,16th c. madrigals and medieval music. Here, however, she shows her vast idiomatic range by singing this contemporary Christian duet with John, who himself, could also sing every idiom from oratorio to cont. Christian: From the Palm Sunday Concert, 1995.
Via Dolorosa - (Arr. MR) A duet by Michael and Jan: MR is also playing guitar. Diane Maltby is at the organ. MR introduces the song with a few lighthearted comments about how it's the sopranos and tenors that get "famous"; bass-baritones and altos, scarcely.
Lead Me to Calvary - (Arr. MR) The RCC vocal group: sopranos - Katie Anderson and Becky Spence; alto - Jan; tenor - john Flynt, and bass-baritone, Michael Roy sing this languid old hymn with close-knitted harmonies: solos by Jan and MR. Diane, as always, is at the organ, being very inconspicuous while simultaneously being invaluable: she knew just how to accomplish that dual task.
I know That My Redeemer Liveth (Joseph M. Martin): This powerful anthem was presented in a full-house concert on Palm Sunday night, 1995, with the RCC chorale at its full strength, here almost halfway through our eventual appointed time together. By this time in the choir's concertizing history,
our church had become an important center of the choral arts in south Florida, though we weren't at the center geographically, being deep in the agricultural area beside a zucchini field. God willed it to be thus, and we all were drawn here, at this place, at this time, for this purpose, and for these songs unto the Lord. Diane Maltby: piano.
Soon a-Will Be Done - (Arr. MR) The RCC choir gives a good performance of this traditional pre-civil war spiritual. The Immanuel Singers, ten to twelve years later, also performed this same arrangement.
It was a great blessing from God that both of these choirs could sing on this level of excellence.
