Songs & Updates for Saturday, November 22, 2014

This Saturday is the Feast of Christ the King, and the last Sunday of Ordinary Time this calendar year.

I was out once again last week, but I do have a few general updates.

I'm told we had a fairly small group last week, but everything was solid. However, there was no rehearsal since neither Jonathan or I was available.

If you're interested in doing the Psalm this week (Shepherd Me, O God), please let me know ASAP. A high-quality recording from the last time we did this piece is below.

We have several less-common tunes (at least, for us) planned this week, including 'Whatsoever You Do' and 'Soon and Very Soon'. If either of these are unfamiliar, please take some time to look over them.

Starting this week, I'll be releasing my director's notes/agenda that I've been writing up weekly for the past month for planning purposes (this will be in addition to blog posts). My hope is that these will give you a better idea of the plan in advance. I'll try to get these out by Thursday.

UPDATE (11/21): my director's notes and agenda have been released via email (a bit late; sorry about that...). These can also be viewed here.

Also, we now have a conducting podium to use during masses and rehearsals! The platform is 24 x 24 x 6 inches and is made of shelving composite materials. I'm planning to bring this in on Saturday for a test drive.

In speaking with Jonathan, our focus for rehearsals in the coming weeks will be the music for Advent and Christmas. It's important that as many people as possible attend rehearsals; when we're not working on December mass music, we'll continue refining Mass of Joy & Peace and a to-be-decided choir piece(s).

UPDATE (11/20): the Office let me know this afternoon that we'll be using the Acclamation 'We Proclaim Your Death' when we switch to Mass of Joy & Peace next week.

I just selected music for 11/29 (the First Sunday of Advent) yesterday evening and will be sending it off to the Office for approval today. The selections for 11/29 were approved by Father earlier this week. As far as December selections go, several of us will collaborate on that since this is such a big and important month for music. I'd like to discuss this more on Saturday, but for now, stay tuned for details!

Finally, in case anyone was wondering, I've been working to cleanup the website by removing and/or merging less-used pages, reducing the menu bar above to one row rather than two. The Calendar, Misc. Music, GC Repertoire, SS Repertoire and Killoren Repertoire pages remain unaffected, while the three Mass Setting pages were merged into one. All others were pulled down, but can be restored at any time. The sidebar was also removed from several pages where it's not needed. As always, feedback and suggestions on the website are appreciated!

There will be practice after mass from 6:30-8:00 PM.

Here are the songs for this week:

Gathering:
GC 486 - The King of Glory

Glory to God:
Mass of Creation

Response (need one):
GC 31 - Shepherd Me, O God (Psalm 23)

Gospel Acclamation (need one):
Mass of Creation

Offertory:
GC 670 - Whatsoever You Do

Holy, Holy, Holy:
Mass of Creation

Eucharistic Acclamation:
Mass of Creation

Eucharistic Doxology:
Mass of Creation

Lamb of God:
Mass of Creation

Communion:
SS 153 - I Am the Bread of Life

Sending:
GC 770 - Soon and Very Soon

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