an evening which reminded us of Dr.Schuler

we recently went to a couple of Christmas concerts at Holy Cross church here in Santa Cruz. the first was the Cabrillo Symphonic Chorus (pictures below), with orchestra, and it was absolutely beautiful. we are constantly reminded, especially by these particular musical outings, how blessed we are to live in such a place as this, where fine music and talented musicians are a such a part of the fabric of the town. this particular chorus will be singing at Carnegie Hall in the spring!

the second concert was the Santa Cruz Chorale, directed by Christian Grube (German, and a life-long friend of Arvo Part!...in fact, Arvo dedicated his Magnificat to Grube and his Berlin boys' choir!) it was all acappela, and so moving, you could hear a pin drop in the sanctuary. Grube chose works by Monteverdi, Mendellsohn, Part, Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Byrd, Gustav Holtz, and other of our favorite composers with whom we were made so familiar in our college choir days. And this reminded us wholly of Dr. Schuler, and we longed for the old days, and realized how grateful we are to have had such a musical education (really, a transformation!) in those four years.

Christian Grube is a Christian man (fitting) who fashioned this concert to be wholly gospel. every song, excepting the Glouchestire Wassail, spoke unabashedly of Christ, and he even required the audience to learn "Jesus Christ was born today, born today; He took all our sins away, our sins away!" to the tune of Jospeh Leiber, Joseph Mein. we were so delighted, especially to be singing and hearing Christ proclaimed in such a touchy and spiritually dark place as santa cruz. later, as we thanked Mr. Grube for his concert, he made it known that he had heard Joe singing in the audience (we were in third row) and said twice "good job!" :)
we have no pictures from this concert because we found out photography is not allowed.

the organ in the balcony, which was actually played for the prelude

joe recognized this guy as a regular at coffee cat

our friend and church music director Stan Neff guest-conducted the women's choir section of the concert. the Neff family has a musical reputation 'round these parts.

mrs. cheryl anderson, conductor (she's super nice...i was in her chior and musicianship classes when i attended Cabrillo back in the day).

our friends Elizabeth Neff, Stan Neff, and their cousin/neice Anna, who is a songbird and did beautifully on her soprano solo in Mozart's Coronation Mass. thank you for sharing your gifted voices with us!