Music for February 27, 2022 + The Last Sunday after Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Immortal, Invisible – Eric Thiman (1900-1975)

Instrumental Music

• Make Me an Instrument – Kevin McChesney (b. 1963)
• Meditation on “Beautiful Savior” – Cathy Moklebust (b. 1958)
• A Tune for the Tuba – Eric Thiman

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew.)

• Hymn 427 - When morning gilds the skies (LAUDES DOMINI)
• Hymn 383 - Fairest Lord Jesus (ST. ELIZABETH)
• Hymn 135 - Songs of thankfulness and praise (SALZBURG)
• Hymn R201 - Be still, for the Spirit of the Lord (BE STILL)
• Hymn R247 - Lord, the light of your love is shining (SHINE, JESUS, SHINE)
• Psalm 99 – Tone Va

The Handbell Guild plays for the first time this year, offering two classic handbell pieces. 

The first is a song called "Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace, composed by Kevin McChesney, one of the most prolific composers for handbell, in response to the tragedy at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in 1999. Fifteen people lost their lives when two students began shooting students and teachers, and eventually themselves. The piece begins and ends with 15 chords for the 15 people who lost their lives, and is composed around the Prayer of St. Francis.

Obviously, we began rehearsing long before the threat of war in the Ukraine. We scheduled it as rumors of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia at the behest of Vladimir Putin were just being voiced. It is with the people of Ukraine (and the entire world) that we play this today.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Kevin McChesney graduated with highest honors from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a BMus in Composition and Theory. A composer and arranger of handbell music, Kevin currently has over 900 titles in print and is one of the very few musicians who makes handbells a full‑time vocation. 

Kevin was a church music director in Methodist and Presbyterian churches for twelve years. Kevin is currently the handbell editor for Jeffers Handbell Supply and the RingingWord catalog. He directs an auditioned community handbell choir, the Pikes Peak Ringers. 

Kevin lives in Colorado Springs, CO, with his wife Tracy and their cats, Belle and Grace Note.

The other work is by Cathy Mokelbust, another prolific composer for bells working today. Since its publication in 1996, her "Meditation on Beautiful Savior" has become one of the all-time most popular pieces in the handbell repertoire, with approximately 50,000 copies sold as of 2012. 

Cathy Moklebust began her handbell journey at age 12 at her home church, First Lutheran Church in Brookings, South Dakota. She went on to get her B.A. and M.Ed. at South Dakota State University, in  Brookings, then began her career as a public school instrumental music instructor in South Dakota. She  has performed as principal or section percussionist with several professional and community bands and orchestras throughout the upper Midwest. Cathy has played in, conducted, and coached church and community handbell ensembles in South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. Since 1989, she has worked in the music retail and publishing industry; currently she and her husband David operate a successful music preparation service in their hometown of Brookings.