♪ Music Notes ♪

MICHAEL BEDFORD (b. 1949), a full-time church musician since 1973, currently serves as organist/choirmaster of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he plays the organ and supervises a full graded choir program including three singing choirs, one handbell choir and a chamber ensemble. Dr. Bedford has published choral music for children’s, youth and adult choirs, as well as organ collections and handbell pieces.

JOHN MASON NEALE (1818-1866) was an English priest and scholar, best known as a hymn writer and translator, having enriched English hymnody with many ancient and medieval hymns translated from Latin and Greek. He studied at Cambridge, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1842. He was offered a parish, but chronic ill health, which was to continue throughout his life, prevented him from taking it. In 1854 Neale co-founded the Sisterhood of St. Margaret, an order of women in the Anglican Church dedicated to nursing the sick. Many Anglicans in his day, however, were very suspicious of anything suggestive of Roman Catholicism. Once Neale was attacked and mauled at a funeral of one of the Sisters. From time to time unruly crowds threatened to stone him or to burn his house. He received no honour or preferment in England, and his doctorate was bestowed by an American college (Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut). However, his basic goodness eventually won the confidence of many who had fiercely opposed him, and the Sisterhood of St. Margaret survived and prospered.

MARK HAYES (b. 1953) is an internationally known award-winning concert pianist, composer, arranger, and conductor. Whether concertizing on the other side of the globe, or composing at his home in Kansas City, Missouri, Mark feels blessed to live out his mission “to create beautiful music for the world”. His compositions and arrangements, which draw from many diverse musical styles such as gospel, jazz, pop, folk and classical, can be found in the music libraries of churches and universities around the world. Mark’s 1,200+ published works include pieces for solo voice, solo piano, multiple pianos, orchestra, jazz combo, small instrumental ensembles, and choruses of all kinds. The Fairlawn Senior Choir has sung many of his anthems over the years, and has also had the privilege of presenting the Canadian premieres of two of his larger works with orchestra at past Special Music Sundays: Gloria (2010) and Magnificat (2015).

A native of Louisiana, JOHN PARKER holds a BM in Vocal Performance from Louisiana College and an MM in Choral Conducting from Northwestern State University. Composing primarily for church and school choirs, he has written lyrics for over 600 choral works. Active as a choral clinician and lecturer, he currently makes his home in Austin, Texas where he has served as Associate Pastor of Worship & Music at Austin Baptist Church since 2014.

JENNETTE THRELFALL (1821-1880) was a Victorian era English hymn writer and author of other sacred poems. She was brought up by an uncle and other relatives, as her parents died when she was young. Suffering from poor health during the greater part of her life seemed to deepen her spiritual faith, and she spent much of her time writing hymns. Her literary accomplishments were lauded after her death by many authorities, including Christopher Wordsworth. “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna” is one of her best known hymn texts, and is sung on Palm Sunday in many churches around the globe.

THOMAS WEELKES (1576-1623) was an English organist and composer, known as one of the great names in the flowering of the Elizabethan madrigal, in a class with Thomas Morley, Orlando Gibbons and William Byrd. Unlike many of his famous contemporaries, he seems to have never served the royal household in London, but rather, made his living as a church musician, including an uneasy tenure as Winchester College organist and later as organist and choirmaster at Chichester Cathedral. Unfortunately, he spent the greater part of his church career being reprimanded by the ecclesiastical authorities: he was noted and famed as a drunkard and notorious swearer, and was dismissed from his musical duties at least once! However, his long tenure serving the church yielded a rich (though lesser-known than his madrigals) harvest of liturgical compositions, including this morning’s anthem Hosanna to the Son of David.

HENRY HART MILMAN (1791-1868) was an English historian and ecclesiastic. He was born in London, the third son of Sir Francis Milman, who was physician to King George III. He was educated at Eton and at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he received numerous prizes for his poetry and essay writings. Milman was ordained in 1816, elected professor of poetry at Oxford in 1821, made Rector of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, and Canon of Westminster in 1835, and in 1849 he became the Dean of St. Paul’s. He was also elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Science in 1864. His Palm Sunday text, “Ride On! Ride On in Majesty!” is the hymn by which he is chiefly remembered, and appears in countless hymnals.

Various legends, registering differing degrees of reality and truth, inevitably surround such a famous and long-lived composition as Messiah by GEORGE FREDERIC HANDEL (1685-1759). It is known that he wrote most of the work in an astonishingly short three weeks time, beginning on August 22, 1741. Another legend attached to the work relates to his inspiration, which casts the frenzied composition as a sort of divine dictation. Handel is said to have emerged at some point (usually, it is noted, after finishing the “Hallelujah Chorus”,) and proclaimed: “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God himself!” The first performance of Messiah took place in Dublin, on April 13, 1742. Handel gave the London premiere less than a year later at Covent Garden, and in the almost 300 years since then, Messiah has taken its rightful place as one of the most frequently performed and most beloved choral works of all time.