GOOD FRIDAY CONCERT

 

Easter is coming, Easter is coming!! But we must endure the darkness before stepping into the Light.

Church of the Roses is so blessed to be able to offer the community a moving concert this Good Friday, conducted by our own Carol Menke and featuring the voices of Cantiamo Sonoma, our own Chancel Choir, and additional musicians from the community. The music presented will be the exquisite Requiem for the Living, with chamber orchestra and soloists. This concert has been a staple of Holy Week in Santa Rosa for decades; we are blessed to be able to offer this majestic music to the community and introduce people from outside our congregation to the glory and majesty of God.

If you are able, please contribute what you can to underwrite this program bringing the voice of God to the ears of man. Please write Good Friday Concert in the memo of your check or as a note via Paypal. Thank you, Roses Super-Heroes!!

~~~~~~~~~~

Some Background on the Good Friday Concert.... by Carol Menke

The Good Friday Concert tradition has been offered at the Church of the Incarnation for the last 25 years, and from now on it’s going to happen at Church of the Roses! The choral ensemble Cantiamo Sonoma, members of the Roses Chancel Choir and recruits from the community will also join in presenting Gabriel Fauré’s exquisite Requiem with chamber orchestra and soloists.

I was introduced to the Good Friday tradition way back when I was 19 years old and traveled to San Francisco to audition for Alden Gilchrist, Director of Music at Calvary. On the evening of Good Friday, year after year, Calvary would present large choral works from Bach Cantatas to a variety of Requiems by Fauré, Cherubini, Michael Haydn, Durufle, and Brahms! Mozart’s Grand Mass in C Minor and Bach’s Mass in B Minor were also presented. I soon became involved in those productions as a soloist, and the Good Friday Concert series was so wonderful – the church was packed every year! Once a year the church was full of not only members of Calvary, but equally as many people from the community.

So I decided to bring the tradition up here to Sonoma County, and it has continued to fill the church with people. There is great power in the sung word, and for many people in our community it has become an important and spiritually fulfilling part of Holy Week.