Music at St. Stanislaus
I’ve mentioned before that I am a church musician. Every weekend, I am responsible for providing the music at two of the six English Masses at St. Stanislaus Parish in Modesto. I play guitar and sing on Saturday evenings at 5:30 PM and Sunday mornings at 11:30 AM. Music leaders at the other Masses are: Cathy at 7:00 AM, Mike at 8:30 AM, Kyle with the choir at 10:00 AM, and Jami and the band at the 5:30 PM Life Teen Mass.
Each of the five of us plans our own selections for music with little or no coordination between the Masses. This is not the way I would like things to be. There are two Masses every weekend that have the same music selections. I’ll let you reread the first paragraph to figure out why. There is no Music Director at the parish to provide the umbrella of direction for us. I’m told that the pastor, Fr. Arouje, has announced that he intends to hire a Music Director, so we’ll see how that goes.
Well, I just heard last night that Mike needs to take an indefinite leave of absence from leading the music at the 8:30 AM Mass. There are some people who play with Mike every week; Jodi plays piano and Joe plays guitar. But Mike’s absence leaves them with no singer. So I have proposed that Cathy, Jodi, and I get together to cooperatively plan the song selections for the four Masses we cover, and I will join the 8:30 AM group to sing (and maybe play guitar as well). At the same time, I have asked Kyle to arrange some viola parts for me so that I can join the other string players at the 10:00 AM Mass. I haven’t touched my viola in months so this will be good for me as well.
So the question is: How soon will I be exhausted with this schedule?
Stay tuned.
