This week’s Choral Evensong was sung on May 15, 2019 by the Illuminare Chamber Choir from Youngstown, Ohio, under the direction of Jon Simsic. That evening was our annual “Youngstown Evensong,” as the homilist was the Rev. Gayle Catinella, Rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Youngstown.

We commemorated Frances Perkins (1880-1965), U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945. Perkins is the longest serving Secretary of Labor, and was the first woman appointed to a U.S. Presidential Cabinet. She was a devout Episcopalian. The Department of Labor building in Washington, D.C., is named after her.

Appropriately, the music that evening included two works from the pen of American composers. The responses were the first performance of the brand-new “Trinity Responses” by Jon Simsic. The Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis were sung to the setting in D by Leo Sowerby (1895-1968). One of the leading American composers of his time, Sowerby spent most of his life in Chicago where he directed the music at St. James Church (now Cathedral) and taught at the American Conservatory of Music. He moved to Washington, D.C., in the last decade of his life to become director of the then-new College of Church Musicians at the National Cathedral. The anthem is the much-loved “Turn back, O man, forswear thy foolish ways” by Gustav Holst.

The Illuminare Chamber Choir (Youngstown, Ohio)
John Simsic, director

Todd Wilson, organist

Homilist: The Rev. Gayle Cantinella (Rector, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Youngstown, Ohio)

Preces and Responses: “Trinity Responses” – John Simsic

Service: Leo Sowerby in D (1895-1968)

Anthem: Turn Back, O Man – Gustav Holst (1874-1934)

Psalm 37: 27-31 (Bairstow)

Hymns: 653, 597

Evensong Order of Service

Prelude

Opening Preces

Office Hymn

Psalm

First Lesson

Magnificat                            

Second Lesson

Nunc Dimittis                       

Apostle’s Creed

Responses, Lord’s Prayer, and Collects

Collect for the Day

Greeting

Homily

Anthem

Spoken Prayers

Concluding Versicle and Response

Blessing

Hymn

Voluntary

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