Support CCS via United Way and the CFC

 CCS is part of the Combined Federal Campaign! If you are an employee expected to contributed to a charity VIA the CFC or United Way, you can now designate CCS as the beneficiary!

The mission of the CFC is to promote and support philanthropy through a program that is employee focused, cost-efficient, and effective in providing all federal employees the opportunity to improve the quality of life for all.CFC is the world's largest and most successful annual workplace charity campaign, with more than 300 CFC campaigns throughout the country and internationally to help to raise millions of dollars each year. Pledges made by Federal civilian, postal and military donors during the campaign season (September 1st to December 15th) support eligible non-profit organizations that provide health and human service benefits throughout the world. The Director of OPM has designated to the Office of CFC Operations responsibility for day-to-day management of the CFC.

To contribute to CCS through the Combined Federal Campaign, please use the following codes:

United Way number:  8638

Combined Federal Campaign:  62850

For more information, please click here.

 

Egg Roll

Our friends at the DC Youth Orchestra were featured performers at the White House Easter Egg Roll! 

Want to learn more about the DCYO? Become a fan on Facebook!

British Choir Festival Interview Series

"As much as it is a military and economic superpower, England has always been an artistic, even choral, superpower. You don't have to be an Anglophile to appreciate that England has produced one of the world's richest choral traditions." - Mickey Butts, San Francisco Classical Voice

To honor this tradition, the Cathedral Choral Society proudly presents an annual British Choir Festival at Washington National Cathedral. The first official festival took place in 1986, when the Laura E. Phillips endowment for the festival was created. 

This year, we are so pleased to host the Saint Thomas and New College Choirs for British Choir Festival - 2010! In the weeks leading up to the festival on April 18th, we will feature a brief interview with past and present members of each choir to discuss what the tradition means to them and where it all started.

Today's interview features Matthew Brown, a UK native. Mr. Brown has been singing in the Anglican tradition since childhood.  He now resides in New York City, and sings with the Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys as a countertenor.

How/when did you begin singing?

I played violin from an early age, and could read music and hold a line, so I joined the school choir when I was ten. I joined my first church choir at Saint Margaret's, Westminster shortly thereafter (as a treble).

What does singing in this British Anglican tradition mean to you?

It means singing beautiful music with talented musicians, and giving long-dead composers eternal life through the performance of their music.

What does the choir bring to your understanding of yourself as a singer?

It helps me listen to others; to understand the importance of working in an ensemble for one's own musical development.

What are the best parts of singing with your choir?

Singing in the amazing space at Saint Thomas Church and the feeling of pride when singing to a packed crowd.

What is it like to come together with other similar choirs to sing in this Festival?

It's amazing to sing with other choirs, and to quickly adapt to new conductors. It also gives us the opportunity to sing Spem in Alium, which would be impossible with just one choir.

What is your favorite thing about Washington National Cathedral?

The sense of space, the mix of the modern and the traditional, the smell of history in the air.

Did you have your Raisin Brahms today???

The average kid is provided insufficient time to learn and experience the arts. This PSA campaign was created to increase involvement in championing arts education both in and out of school.

Final Lenten Series Concert - Washington National Cathedral

20th Century France: Durufle Requiem

• Tickets: $20-$40.
• Buy tickets now

Come to the Cathedral and join us for the fourth and final concert in the series of Lenten Concerts given by the National Cathedral’s concert ensemble, Cathedra. Twentieth-century France produced as rich a seam of liturgical music as has been seen in the history of western music. Arguably two of its giants were Francis Poulenc and Maurice Duruflé. In tonight’s program we hear the Four Lenten Motets of Poulenc and his unaccompanied Mass. The series closes with Durufle’s sublime Requiem, using his first edition with string orchestra and organ.

Poulenc composed music that reflects that fervent Catholicism of his paternal side and the provocative artistic heritage of his mother’s family. In the Quatre motets pour un temps de pénitence, the former shines through. Although Poulenc’s inventive use of harmony and rhythm are far from conservative, his choice of texts and the intensity of their settings are unequaled. The Mass in G, on the other hand, plays more with musical texture and color, employing the singers like instruments, rather than striving toward the text painting achievements of his motets.

Duruflé’s Requiem ranks among the most beloved pieces in the Washington National Cathedral Choir’s repertoire. The precise counterpoint of the Kyrie, the ecstatic climaxes of the Domine Jesu Christe and Sanctus, and the powerful restraint of the solo Pie Jesu are a breathtaking sequence of musical events. The angelic conclusion of the In Paradisum transports the listener and singer alike into a higher realm of consciousness.

Washington Post Review

In performance: St. Matthew Passion

Web-only review:

Cathedral Choral Society: sublime Passion
by Cecelia Porter
A sublime performance of sublime music does not come along every day. But it did on Sunday at Washington National Cathedral, when J. Reilly Lewis conducted the Cathedral Choral Society and Orchestra, along with the Cathedral Choristers and stellar vocal and instrumental soloists, in J.S. Bach's epic "St. Matthew Passion." A portrayal of the impelling events leading up to the Crucifixion, the "St. Matthew" is a three-hour-long drama of realism as wrought with conflicting emotions as Shakespeare's "Macbeth" or Wagner's "Ring" cycle. The libretto combines scriptural accounts with Bach's personal choice of other texts according to the Lutheran tradition of his day.
(read more after the jump)
Bach demands impossibly Olympic standards of performers, such as assigning wind players extended melodic lines and singers never-ending solo passages on just one syllable -- without time to breathe. But in Sunday's performance, everyone met the technical challenges with seeming ease. Chorus and soloists also rendered Bach's text with German consonants and vowels unblemished by English pronunciation, intensifying the cutting edge of a story pitting violence and guilt against compassion.
Lewis's every motion drew from his forces the tumultuous scenario of individual remorse, screaming multitudes, even the thunder and lightning of nature's fury. As the Evangelist, Rufus Müller narrated the shattering story with both overwhelming vocal magnitude and telling physical bearing. Likewise, the other soloists coupled vocal excellence with dramatic gestures. Portraying their roles with deep conviction were soloists Christòpheren Nomura, Gillian Keith, Clare Wilkinson, Alan Bennett and Craig Phillips.
As Sunday's performance ended, the audience delayed applause for a few moments. That told it all.
-- Cecelia Porter
By Anne Midgette  |  February 23, 2010; 5:00 AM ET

Bach's St. Matthew Passion Concert Weekend

ST. MATTHEW PASSION (BWV 244)

Johann Sebastian Bach

Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 4 pm

Tickets starting at $20

BUY TICKETS HERE

 

Profoundly religious yet intimate in its expression of
human feeling, the  St. Matthew Passion tells of the days
leading to the Crucifixion as the music arcs from the exultant
to the tragic, sweeping the listener into the drama.

Cathedral Choral Society

J. Reilly Lewis, conductor

Rufus Müller, Evangelist

Christòpheren Nomura, Christus

Gillian Keith, soprano

Clare Wilkinson, mezzo-soprano

Alan Bennett, tenor

Craig Phillips, bass-baritone

Washington National Cathedral Choristers

Michael McCarthy, music director

Join us at 2:30 pm for a free pre-concert discussion in Perry Auditorium (7th Floor of the Cathedral) with Michael McCarthy, Director of Music at Washington National Cathedral.