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St. Mary’s Choir & Service Music

St. Mary’s Choir is made up of men and women who love to sing, and who wish to offer their musical gifts and abilities, to help lead our worship each week. Our choir has musicians from a variety of musical background and abilities. The choir meets each week during the school year on Thursday nights for practise from 7:30 – 9:30 PM. Any individuals who are interested in joining the choir are welcome to connect with our Director of Music, who would be happy to explain how our music programs works and take any questions you might have.

At St. Mary’s, our 10:30am Service of Holy Communion is always a sung service.  Our music format draws from the rich Anglican Choral Music Tradition for a multi-voice choir.  Multiple times per month our Church Musicians will provide ‘Musical Offerings’ to complement our weekly worship.  As we work to expand our Family Ministry programming at St. Mary’s, we have begun to offer some blended music worship services.  On the 3rd Sunday of each month, you’ll find a blend of modern contemporary and traditional music throughout our service.

Our main Sunday morning worship traditionally centres on the Holy Eucharist from the Anglican Book of Alternative Services.  Each Sunday we use one of two different musical settings for Holy Communion: Merbecke, and the Schubert Deutsche Messe.

John Merbecke (c.1505-c.1585) based his setting on traditional Latin plainsong and adapted it to the English texts of the then new Prayer Book.  It was published in 1550.  The organ accompaniment used at Saint Mary’s was arranged by Healey Willan (1880-1968).

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) wrote five settings. His Mass in F major, D872 (Deutsche Messe, German Mass) was written in 1826. The edition used at Saint Mary’s is a 1985 adaptation by Richard Proulx. In his foreword to the edition, Proulx describes it as “essentially congregational music, participatory music of the finest kind.  Although technically easy, this music is unmistakably Schubert’s and displays the melodic grace we associate with his songs.”

Come join us and experience this wonderful music as we give dwell with God each Sunday in Word and Song!

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