Bells in the Synagogue (catching up #2)

On Friday, Dec 28th, the Trinity Ringers of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Menlo Park played for a Shabbat service at Etz Chayim synagogue in Palo Alto.

You might be asking why an Episcopal Church's bell choir is playing at a Jewish synagogue.

The answer is simple: because one of the members of the Trinity Ringers is Jewish! You see, Mark is a professional percussionist who used to live down the street from the church. One evening he was walking home and took a shortcut through the churchyard. He heard bells ringing in the Sanctuary & went in to investigate. They invited him to stay and ring & he did!

Periodically, Etz Chayim has lay-led Shabbat services, usually on the 5th Friday of each month. Dec 28th wasn't a 5th Friday, but because it was Solstice and the last Friday of the year, it was lay-led, too. Whenever Mark is the lay leader, he invites the bell choir to ring.

This was our 3rd time there and the congregation seems to really love us - and we love them! They are enthusiastic and always curious about the bells and chimes as well as super-welcoming of all of us ringers into their midst.

It's my understanding that their Shabbat services don't usually have instrumental music; the congregation sings the prayers a capella. That all changes when Mark's in charge!

This time, we played 2 pieces on our own:

*) Meditation by Dan R. Edwards (published by Choristers Guild - there is another Meditation by Dan Edwards published by someone else (National, I think)); and

*) Ring Alleluia by Howard F. Starks (published by Harold Flammer).

One of our members is a harpist & we played along with her on a few things from Sylvia Woods' book Hymns and Wedding Music For All Harps. We played:

*) Hine Ma Tov as a round. First Mary played the whole thing on harp with the congregation singing along, then she started again this time with the left half of the congregation, and we started 8 bars later with the right half of the congregation. We carried on like this until Mark told us to stop; and

*) L'cha Dodi with some doubling of the melody in octaves in the bells and some other embellishes by the harp.

The bells just read off of the harp music for this and used their pencils to indicate any added notes or things - and to mark notes that were in a clef they're not used to reading them in!

I also played 2 duets with Gretchen Rauch. We added bell embellishments to harp and harpischord on the theme from Pan's Labyrinth, and did the melody plus some embellishments to a piece by Alan Hovhaness, the name of which escapes me at the moment Spirit Cat (unpublished) with bells playing the voice part & with Mark on vibes.

All in all, we had a great time!