Lessons and Carols at St. Mary of the Hills

Provided by: St. Mary of the Hills

BLOWING ROCK, NC – While the secular world prepares for the ‘Retail High Holidays’ with massive consumerism, the choir of St. Mary of the Hills Episcopal Church presents a calm center for your holiday preparations with a service of Advent Lessons and Carols on Sunday afternoon, December 14th at 3 pm.  

Based on the medieval vigil service in preparation for the holiest night of the Christian year, Lessons and Carols follows the story of the fall of Adam, the promise of the Messiah, and the birth of Jesus, as told in short Bible readings interspersed with carols and hymns.  Sung in Anglican churches all over the world since the 1880’s, the service is a lovely part of the Advent season (the four Sundays before Christmas), the traditional season of preparation for the birth of Jesus.  Unlike the secular world – in which we are surrounded by holiday music and exhortations to spend ever more money in an endless cycle of consumption beginning in mid-October – in the early church, the month before Christmas was a season of deep introspection, reflection, and patience in preparation to receive the miracle of God’s love as expressed by the birth of the Christ child.

Music for this Lessons and Carols includes the African-American spiritual I wanna be ready, There is a flower and Down in yon forest  (arr. by John Rutter), a rousing Spanish carol Riu, riu, chiu, the traditional Appalachian carol I wonder as I wander, and the hymn O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.  

Dr. James Bumgardner has been organist and Choir Director at St. Mary’s for over 30 years, and has led the choir on several trips to study with the foremost directors of Anglican choral music in Cambridge, England, including George Guest at St. John’s, Stephen Cleobury at King’s, and Tim Brown at Clare College. The group has been choir-in-residence at Durham Cathedral in England three times, and has sung services for St. Mary the Virgin in New York City, as well as representing North Carolina at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.