This virtual choir video first appeared as part of our Christmas concert, but now it’s shareable on its own.
Enjoy!
The essence of Good Friday
For me, this song — “You Remain Our Friend” — from the Oratorio captures the essence of Good Friday and the promise of the great ones: that they will always and ever love us, no matter what.
LYRICS
Solo:
When we need You, You descend,
Seeking grieving hearts to mend.
By hate unaffected,
You remain our Friend.
On a cross rejected,
Doomed to meet a shameful end,
Still, with love perfected,
You remain our Friend.
Choir:
Long we feared to face Your love,
Lest our emptiness it prove.
Now at last our hearts we give You,
Who remain our Friend.
More Oratorio inspiration
Tuesday I shared about singing all the Oratorio choir songs during our Easter Zoom Sing-Along, which was both great fun and deeply inspiring.
Now — finally! — I’ve got all the links and can share about two more opportunities to experience the Oratorio during this Holy season. The first option can viewed starting tomorrow night (Good Friday), while the other offering can be yours to enjoy whenever you like!
Christ Lives! An Illustrated Oratorio
with photography and music by Swami Kriyananda
Good Friday, April 2 at 7:00pm (online)
https://www.ananda.org/video/christ-lives-an-illustrated-oratorio/
(It will also premiere directly on YouTube and Facebook.)
This version of Christ Lives! includes footage from a 2008 performance of the Oratorio in Palo Alto, California, together with a slideshow of photographs by Swami Kriyananda.
Swami describes how the music came to him as he meditated at sacred sites while on pilgrimage in the Holy Land in 1983. While there, he experienced the deep inspiration of Christ as a living presence and wrote each piece from that uplifted state of awareness.
The photographs were taken by Swami during that same pilgrimage.
And for an extra special treat..!
Christ Lives! A Pilgrimage to the Holy Land
(archival recording from 1984)
An Oratorio composed, arranged, and narrated by Swami Kriyananda
Original 1984 Edition (archival) – Remastered
MP3 Download ~ $16.95
CLICK HERE for more information or to purchase
Oratorio to the rescue
I’ve written before about how disorienting this past year has felt, as we’ve gone month after month (after month) without the anchor of our regular choir rehearsals. Focused around rotating cycle of seasonal events, I never realized just how important they were to helping me know where I was in space and time.
So, sure enough, about a week ago I sort of “woke up” and realized: “It’s almost Easter!” But it didn’t feel real.
Until tonight, when our Village choir had an Easter Zoom sing-along, during which we sang all twelve choir songs from the Oratorio composed by Swami Kriyananda. Oh my, it was like finding an oasis in the middle of the desert; it felt that good to sing these inspired songs with our fellow choir members — even through Zoom and even without all the solos and instrumentals.
And now I’m in the mood, with — thank goodness — lots more Oratorio opportunities ahead! In tomorrow’s blog I’ll share more information and links, just in case you’d like to tap into this inspiration for yourself.
The moment we knew
There’s been a lot of reflecting these past few days on having reached the one year anniversary of the “official” start of the global pandemic. Many of the articles have to do with people remembering the moment when they finally “got it” that the virus was a game-changer and we were all headed into absolutely unknown territory.
For me it wasn’t one moment but a series of inexorable steps in the process of coming to terms with the unimaginable.
We were in full scale Oratorio preparations — our very first in the new Temple of Light! Rehearsals were going well and we were all so excited. We had a rehearsal on March 10, the day before the WHO announcement. Needless to say, we haven’t had a full choir rehearsal since.
At first I was scrambling to find a solution; I simply couldn’t wrap my mind around the possibility of not being able to present the Oratorio. Maybe we could reduce the size of the choir. Maybe we could spread out. Maybe we could do it with just eight singers and no further rehearsal. Of course, our Village management team and medical advisors weren’t taking any chances.
No Oratorio, period.
Then I read the article about the infamous choir in Washington state, where a full three-quarters of the singers became ill with COVID-19 after a rehearsal in which they sat farther apart than usual, didn’t share music, and really tried to be careful. Several choir members died.
I guess if there was a moment, that was it.
I certainly can’t complain about this past year. I live in a beautiful rural setting; in a loving and supportive spiritual community; with a husband that I actually enjoyed being “stuck” with day after week after month(!); and we’ve stayed completely healthy.
There’s also been incredible, expansive growth on so many levels, for which I am very grateful. But my heart isn’t completely whole and I’m not entirely myself without making music with fellow singers and musicians, then sharing it with the world.
Soon, soon…
Disoriented and adrift
There are moments when I ask myself (somewhat impatiently, I have to confess) why the heck is it taking so long to find my bearings, settle in, and get back to full productivity.
After all, it’s been almost a month…!
And, after all, it’s almost Easter and there’s so much to do…!
But the truth of the matter is that I could not believe we were already at Palm Sunday last week. And I’m having a hard time fully comprehending that Easter is in less than a week.
A big part of why I’m feeling so disoriented and cast adrift is because — for the music ministry — the Easter season is usually anchored by our Good Friday performance of the Oratorio, Christ Lives. But this year there’s no choir, no Oratorio performance, no live Sunday service music at all.
I’m still plenty busy, but with a wide variety of tasks, many of which continue to evolve day to day in response to the ongoing crisis. It feels scattered and piecemeal, and I can’t help reflecting on how different it would be if this were any other year.
If it were a “normal” year, our rehearsals would have been steadily intensifying over the past four weeks. We would have been meeting regularly with soloists; arranging instrumental rehearsals; meeting with our sound and production teams; figuring out choir formations and seating diagrams. Tomorrow night would have been our final run-through before Friday’s performance. At this point we would be having a hard time thinking about anything but the Oratorio, as we more fully immersed ourselves in Christ’s life with every practice and rehearsal.
So, yeah. As we get closer to Easter, I guess the reality of it all is starting to hit home. I really, really miss it.