Anthem Spotlight: Don’t Stop the Music-4.24.25

This week, the Folk Group will lead us in the music of the Liturgy, so I would like to take this opportunity to share a few sentences about our fine Choir and the music program at St. Peter’s. Over these many months, we have been graced with music from many historical periods, from past to present. Just during this Lenten season, culminating on Easter Sunday, we have experienced beautiful music through the centuries—traditional hymns for the congregation and excerpts from major musical works for our Choir and St. Peter’s Bells. We are truly blessed to have such hardworking and talented people among us, who give so willingly of their time and talents to make each liturgical event so special.

Did you know that some Episcopal Churches still have as many as eight paid choristers? I would hold our singers up with them on any day of the week! Conversely, there are some churches that can barely rally three or four voices for a Sunday morning. A chorister from my community chorus at Hershey’s Mill has written a poem that I would like to share with you.

Don’t Stop the Music…a poem by Cheryl Litzke

My soul is dancing.

The sounds, like ocean waves,

wash over my restless spirit.

Don’t stop the music.

From the bass beats of the drum

to the soaring obbligatos,

I am carried like water to memories’ distant shore.

Don’t stop the music.

Music makers die, but music lives on

in wordless melodies, beautiful harmonies,

lyric rhymes that bring us joy and peace.

Don’t stop the music.

If the universe stops listening,

tympanic membranes never breached,

is soulful music still within reach?

Like trees falling in forests with no one to hear,

does the music stop when no one is near?

At St. Peter’s Church, the music will go on!!