Tuesday, September 16, 2025

Musings at St. Andrew’s
Ann-Marie MacDairmid | Director of Music

A warm welcome to everyone! September marks the end of summer and the start of fall. Music programs are well under way for a new year of the church seasons.

On Sunday, September 7th the sanctuary choir returned. There are wonderful anthems that have been and will be sung during the Sunday services. The Thanksgiving anthem will be For The Beauty of The Earth by John Rutter.

The handbell ringers have started rehearsing. On Sunday, October 5th, they will be joined by Knox Chimes to play the prelude and postlude.

The choir and handbell ringers welcome new singers and ringers in the chorus. Keep in mind, rehearsals will begin after Thanksgiving for the Christmas Cantata.

This year St. Andrew's are celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Noon Hour Concert Series! Douglas Haas introduced the program to the community and it has been continuing every fall and spring. On September 17th Annette Haas and the Leith Quartet will be performing. And yes, Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen will be performed. And there will be a 'special guest' in attendance. On September 24th Carol Ann Weaver, Mary-Catherine Pazzano and Miriam Stewart-Kroeker are presenting 'Two Deserts in Dialogue – One Natural (Kalahari), One Man-Made (Ukraine), with music CA Weaver composed during extreme draught in South Africa’s Kalahari Desert in 2023 when all of life struggled in this majestic land. Then, music she composed honouring Ukraine, parts of which have become a man-made desert in this war. A final piece, “Listen to the Silence” which CA composed in the Kalahari, allows voices to emerge from the desert silence which can possibly offer hope for Ukraine!' October 1st features two choral scholars at St. Andrew's; Amanda Jeffreys and Morgan Ballantyne. Upcoming concerts and information about the artists is available on the church website.

Mark your calendar to attend these amazing performances!

The worship service on October 5th will be led by Rev. John Borthwick, Catherine Hertel and Andrew Foster and appropriately the choir will contribute two Celtic songs by John Bell. John Lamberton Bell (b. 1949) is a member of the Iona Community, hymn-writer, broadcaster and Church of Scotland minister.

Iona Community is an ecumenical Christian community of people from different walks of life and different traditions, so called because its activities take place on the islands of Iona and Mull. Iona is a tiny island off the coast of the large island of Mull, which is part of the Inner Hebrides. It is about 2 km wide and 6 km long with a resident population of 125. It is windswept and there are few trees.

The community began as a project led by George MacLeod, a minister of the Church of Scotland, who organized a group of ministers and working men to go to Iona to rebuild the ruined medieval Iona Abbey. A community grew out of this project which evolved to become the ecumenical group that it is today, which comprises members who work and live throughout the world. There are 270 Members, around 1,800 Associate Members and 1,600 Friends of the Community. The members, associates and friends include Presbyterians, Anglicans, Lutherans, Quakers, Roman Catholics and people from other denominations and people not associated with any denomination.

The Iona Community runs residential centres Iona Abbey on the island of Iona and Camas Tuath on Mull. People come for reflection and inspiration in a Christian community, in a beautiful, rugged landscape. The community has its own liturgy and daily services.

Our “Iona” service will include an Anthem titled Journey Prayers. It was written by John Bell in 2000 for the sending out of a volunteer from Scotland to Guatemala, to work with returned refugees there. The title of the tune is Quazeltanango, the name of the municipality in Guatemala where the volunteer would be working. The text for Journey Prayers is from ancient Celtic poems in the Carmina Gadelica.

The Offertory is titled I Bow My Knee in Prayer. The text is also taken from the Carmina Gadelica, the tune, named Dunning, has no known origin, it could be a blend of sacred chant and ancient folk melody, or could simply be a fairly recent anonymous composition.

Carmina Gadelica is a collection of prayers, hymns, incantations, blessings, poems and songs, proverbs, lexical items, historical anecdotes, natural history observations and miscellaneous lore recorded, translated and reworked by Alexander Carmichael (1832–1912). The material was gathered in the Gaelic speaking regions of northwest Scotland between 1860 and 1909.

'A notable Iona Community music quote highlights their belief in music's transformative power: "We believe that the holy act of singing together shapes faith, heals brokenness, transforms lives, and renews peace". This perspective is reflected in the Iona Community's ethos, which encourages congregational singing and the use of music, particularly world music and African music, to foster social justice and an intimate connection with God and others.'

Ann-Marie MacDairmid

Director of Music

St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Kitchener