About Music in the Life of First Parish

Our music director, Laura Prichard, maintains much of the information relating to music on our site. Especially important is the "CURRENT SCHEDULE." Updated weekly, this is the place to look for rehearsal detail. Contact music director, Laura Prichard by email -- laura@firstparish.info by phone (home 978-369-7329, cell 508-423-1423) Laura submitted a news column for our fall startup. See Current Music News (submitted 9/23/2009)

Music for Sunday Morning Services

Our service music is most regularly provided by our church organist, Sarah Haero Tocco, and by choirs under the direction of music director, Laura Prichard.
Learn more about our music staff.

The adult choir sings most Sundays from September-early June and provides music-centered services 2-4 times per year. The choir rehearses Thursday evenings in the sanctuary from 8pm until 9:30pm and meets at 9am on Sunday mornings for a warm-up rehearsal.

Several times a year the choir is augmented by singers coming to rehearse for a particular service. Laura refers to the augmented choir as our "Festival Choir."

To aid in learning choral selections, Laura sometimes posts recordings. Check here for these -- email will be sent with access information when there are new postings.

Both men and women gather occasionally for creating special vocal performances. UUlations, under the direction of Jennifer Kobayashi, sing close harmony arrangements both sacred and secular. UUlations have oerformed at church services, the Fair Cafe, coffee houses and art galleries and the Alliance Holiday program. For more information and a performance schedule, see the UUlations website.

Our three children's choirs rehearse weekly, travel to performances throughout the area, and perform in services each month. They are featured in the annual Musicale and Alliance Holiday party.

Instrumentalists participate in service music in ensemble performances, sometimes including the choir, sometimes on their own and sometimes with organ. The instrumental ensembles performing most regularly are:

• First Parish Symphonic Band : performs monthly, these rehearsals are announced in the Order of Service
• First Parish Flute Loops Flute Ensemble : coordinated by Mies Boet-Whitaker (flute)
• First Parish Jazz Ensemble : coordinated by Chris Botos (trombone).

In summer, our paid music staff takes a break, and a range of musicians and affiliated groups come forward to lend musical interest to the lay-led services.

Calls go out for help with music to people known to be interested in stepping in occasionally. Write musiclists@firstparish.info if you'd like to be placed on a list for notices when either singers or instrumentalists are needed or use the form provided here to sign up.

Music for Other Occasions

Musicians crop up in many venues at First Parish. Here are some musical contributions that have repeated often enough to be regarded as traditional.

• An annual Spring "Musicale" is sponsored by the Music Committee. This concert features musicians in a variety of styles in music by no means exclusively "sacred."
• During the November Harvest Moon Fair, the cafe features live music in a variety of styles, provided in half-hour programs by our local musicians.

• At Town Day in September, musicians add to the attractiveness of the First Parish offerings of "Man-made Chili" and home-made pies. Our parking lot and lawn become a lively gathering and lingering place, with no small measure of credit going to the music being provided.

• For many, the Alliance-sponsored December program of music provided by First Parish young people's choirs and inter-generational instrumental ensembles marks the beginning of the winter holiday season. There is lively caroling by audience and performers together.

Musicians' Extended Family

Three performing groups make their homes at First Parish -- each has participants from First Parish among its members. In addition congregation members are active in many other music groups.
Read the Connections page here to learn about some of these special organizations.  

Music Committee

The Music Committee works closely with music staff to support the role of music in the life of the church. The committee takes particular responsibility for the upkeep of instruments at the church. Click here for a list of the current music committee members with email contact information. (Use the same access information as for other member's areas of the web site.)

Current Music News

Submitted by Music Director, Laura Prichard, on September 23, 2009.

Welcome back to First Parish Arlington for a great season of music and worship! Most rehearsals take place in the Sanctuary on Thursday nights.

Our musicians are off to a spectacular start this year, with thirty singers for the Ingathering service, followed by a 2pm recital by the Prichards and friends, attended by 65 people and videotaped. Our instrumentalists were featured on Sept. 20, and the final service of the month will focus on choral music in Hebrew, with solos from Andrew Leonard, Nancy McDowell, and Mike Prichard.

ADDITIONAL SINGERS/PLAYERS NEEDED
The two Fall Sundays which are music-centered include a Nov. 8 presentation of parts of the Brahms Requiem and the Winter music service on December 13, featuring John Rutter's Magnificat and the return of MIT Orchestra conductor Adam Boyles for the Beethoven Choral Fantasy. Please join us for these special occasions if your schedule is too packed for regular Sunday singing/playing.

INFORMATION SOURCES
Would you like to be on a musicians' email list? Contact laura@prichard.net or mintons@rcn.com
Would you like to know about upcoming Sunday music and practice files for the choir? Click on http://firstparish.info/Music/FPAschedule.html
Would you like to perform for the Harvest Moon Fair on Saturday, Nov. 21? We need several 20-minute acts to play in the Café. Contact Laura or email musiclists@firstparish.info
Would you like to attend concerts and recitals of First Parish musicians? Click on http://firstparish.info/Music/connections.html

NEW WORKS
Kenneth Seitz wrote a welcoming fanfare for Marta Flanagan's first official service and we will perform two of his newest anthems on Nov. 1 and Nov. 22. He will be working with Marta to create a new piece for our choir for the Jan. 24 Installation Service.

At Ingathering, we repeated Diane Shriver's new baby dedication arrangement (Pete Seeger's Sailing Down My Golden River), composed for Chris Jones and Alisa Conner. Diane's music will also be featured during the December Pageant service on Dec. 20, coordinated with RE.

For Cecile Strugnell's moving Memorial Service preceding Ingathering, the UUlations premiered a new arrangement by Jennifer Kobayashi, and her recent composition When Music Sounds will be featured on Nov. 1.

Last year at Star Island (LOAS 1, 2008), Laura and Mike Prichard had the opportunity to work with a rising young jazz musician and UU composer from Montreal named Kaveh Nabatian. They commissioned a new choral piece from him which we will premiere in the Sunday service on Dec. 6, with the composer present. Kaveh's father Baram picked out the text (a passage in Farsi by the Afghani poet Rumi) and made a diction tape to help our choir learn the piece. It is very beautiful and may remind some of Samuel Barber's string music and others of Bollywood film scores. Now the amazing part (which we didn't know until this month): our new minister, the Rev. Marta Flanagan, is Kaveh's aunt! Amazing. ;)

STAFF NEWS
Organist Sarah Haera Tocco has begun the doctoral program in Piano Performance at BU this Fall and will present a full-length public recital in early October as part of the Newton Free Library regular performance series. She is continuing (part-time) as the Music Teacher for the Dallin Elementary School in Arlington Heights.

Music Director Laura Prichard is also employed on the faculty of UMass-Lowell (Music and History Depts.) and is teaching part-time in three school music programs (employed 80% time rather than 180% like last year). She gave the first of four 2009-10 pre-concert lecture sets last weekend for the San Francisco Symphony and will return as the regular lecturer for the Boston Baroque this year. Contrary to the recent Arlington Advocate article (8/27/09), she is now fully-certified as a K-12 Massachusetts teacher of Music, Visual Art, Theater, and as a Supervisor/Director for Fine Arts. If she passes the state teacher's MTEL test in Dance/Kinesiology this month, she will be the only Mass. teacher certified in every Arts discipline in the state.

OUTREACH
The Winchester UU choir will visit us at Arlington visit us for a combined Sunday service on October 4. Their music director, John Kramer, played for our Knoxvile Relief Benefit Concert in September 2008.

The UUlations will travel to Needham as invited musicians for the Nov. 15 Sunday service, and continue to provide music regularly for First Parish Blood Drives. They were the featured entertainment at Theo May's book singing this month.