‘O sing unto the Lord a ‘new’ song,
For He hath done marvellous things’
Psalm 98
Sunday 18th May was a very busy day at St. James’ church. The Annual Parochial Church meeting had followed the
10.30 Holy Communion service and then, only hours later, the Deanery Choral Evensong was hosted.
Visitors and familiar faces came through the church doors in a blaze of sunshine and took their seats, waiting for the proceedings to unfold.
The choir stalls soon filled up with visiting choristers from across the Deanery, ready to lead the singing. They had a full schedule ahead, opening the service with ‘Ye choirs of new Jerusalem’.
LLM (Licensed Lay Minister) Nicola, led the Evensong, and Director of Music, Paul Buckmaster provided organ accompaniment in addition to leading the choir through the service, acting as cantor for the Preces and Responses (William Smith / Robert Stone).
Following the Book of Common Prayer, the congregation listened to readings such as Daniel:6, (where the famous story of Daniel and the lion’s den was recounted), sang hymns, prayed and reflected during some sophisticated choral music. These structured readings, hymns and choral pieces made up the soundtrack for the evening. Psalm 98 was sung by the choir to a chant by former Director of the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM), Gerald Knight. The settings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis were composed in 1984 by talented, local professional musician, Robert Richmond for Stalmine Choral Group, and have been firm favourites at St James ever since. The anthem was Charles Wood’s setting of ‘This Joyful Eastertide’ to a traditional Dutch melody. Overall, the music had a celebratory, Easter tone to it through the joyful language of hymns like, ‘The Day of Resurrection’ and ‘Christ the Lord is risen again’.
As the early summer sun headed west to set, the faithful were invited to stay and share some refreshments. Needless to say, in keeping with St. James’ well-deserved reputation for ‘putting on a good spread’, the refreshments’ table was almost overflowing with homemade cakes and biscuits. All the visitors enjoyed choosing a sweet treat or two to round off a lovely, prayerful evening and accompany some friendly, relaxed chat before heading off home as the sun set.
