Oct11
Choral Evensong: Stanford in C
5:00 PM · Nave
Responses by Smith, Psalm 104, and Bairstow's Let all mortal flesh keep silence for the anthem.
Sundays at 5 PM · 4 October to 23 May
Choral Evensong · Season fifty-eight
The psalms, sung as the light goes.
Forty-five minutes of evening prayer that the choir sings for you, by candlelight, in the gray stone church on Pearl Street. You don't need to know when to stand. Nobody is checking.
- When
- Sundays, 5 PM
- Choir
- 22 voices
- After
- Cider downstairs
The parish
An ordinary parish with an unusual amount of singing
St. Columba's has stood at the corner of Pearl and North Willard since 1868, built of gray Isle La Motte limestone by quarrymen who sang in its first choir. We are about 240 households now: university staff, retired dairy farmers, new Vermonters from Bhutan and the Congo, and a fair number of students who came for the music and stayed for the soup.
We are Episcopalians. That means the Book of Common Prayer, bishops, women and men at the altar, and an honest welcome for anyone who walks in. Most of what we say on Sunday has been said in English for four hundred years. Most of what we do the rest of the week is about Burlington now.
The music list
What the choir is singing this autumn
Add to calendar
Oct18
Choral Eucharist: Darke in F
10:00 AM · Nave
Harold Darke's communion setting, with Hymn 390, Praise to the Lord, at the offertory.
Oct22
Compline by candlelight
9:00 PM · Lady Chapel
Twenty minutes of plainsong in the dark. Come in quietly; the door on Willard Street is left on the latch.
Nov1
All Souls' Evensong with Fauré's Requiem
5:00 PM · Nave
The names of everyone the parish has buried this year are read aloud between the movements. Send a name to the office by 28 October.
Nov15
Choristers' Evensong: Dyson in D
5:00 PM · Nave
The trebles sing the whole service on their own, for the first time this season.
Nov29
Advent Procession
5:00 PM · Nave, beginning in darkness
Readings and carols for Advent. The church starts dark and is lit candle by candle from the west door.
Dec13
Messiah sing-along, Part One
3:00 PM · Nave
Bring your own score or borrow one of ours. Soloists from the Parish Choir; everyone else sings the choruses.
Dec24
Lessons and Carols, then Midnight Mass
4:00 PM & 11:00 PM · Nave
Nine readings and carols at four, with the choristers. The Midnight Mass begins with carols at 10:40.
Nothing in that category this month.
Monday, 3:45 PM
Theory first, then the anthem. Mr. Abernethy keeps the oatcakes in the organ loft.
The Choristers
Free choir training for any child who can match a note
The Choristers of St. Columba's are twenty girls and boys aged eight to fourteen from eleven Burlington schools. They rehearse Monday to Thursday after school, read music fluently within a year, and sing Evensong on Sundays beside the adults.
There is no fee, and nobody has to belong to the parish. Many choristers' families don't come to anything else here, and that is fine. Each chorister is paid a stipend every term, because it is real work and they do it well.
- Ages 8 to 14, any child with an unchanged voice
- Rehearsals 3:45 to 5:15 PM, Monday to Thursday, with a snack
- A walking pickup from Edmunds Elementary at 3:20
- A $150 stipend each term, paid to the chorister
Hymn 382
Seven whole days, not one in seven, I will praise thee.
In the pews
Why people keep coming on Sunday nights
Eleven hundred Magnificats, give or take, and 'he hath put down the mighty' still catches me.
We came for the free lessons. We stayed because the choir parents fed us for a week when the baby came.
Most weeks I'm not sure what I believe. At Evensong someone sings the prayers for me.
Evensong is at five. The Pearl Street doors open at half past four.
Sit anywhere and leave whenever you like. If the choir notices, they will only be pleased you came.