Free Music Event at St. Vincent de Paul's Good Friday Service with Pergolesi's Stabat Mater

On Good Friday, April 22, 2011 (noon to 1 pm) at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Petaluma something fantastic is going to happen that happens every year.  Personally, I think it is a secret that is too well kept.  Maybe its because I enjoy participating so much that I want everyone to be invited to come.
Imagine 40 minutes of the most beautiful music played and sung from the balcony of St. Vincent De Paul’s Church in Petaluma, where the amazing acoustic turns it into a spectacular concert hall experience.  I’m not exaggerating, when Carol Menke and I sing there, accompanied by Marilyn Thompson at the organ, we can hear our voices sailing out over the audience amplified by the incredible acoustic that St. Vincent’s is known for.

The concert is absolutely free and is actually the Good Friday service at the Church.  The musical event is the service.  After the welcome, a reader reads the translation of the first movement and then we sing it in Latin.  What you will be hearing is the telling of the story of Jesus’s mother as she watches him on the cross, witnessing him dying. 

After the first movement, the reader presents the next part in translation.  In other words, you have an opportunity to follow in word and music, in English and Latin, one of the most influential religious dramas of western religious thought.

Did I mention it is free?