December 7, 2025

I registered about seven months ago that there was some interest in having a choral evensong service at the church, as it had last been done (I am told) before the pandemic. In a choir that sings so much music already on Sunday mornings, it takes a bit of strategy to get a special service learned. Evensongs are absolutely whirlwinds, but as I told the choir, to the congregation, the service feels like a gentle breeze on the backs of their necks. Below is the order of worship.

For it, I borrowed the introduction from an order I saw at St. Paul’s London, used the older ritual, and made sure the directions were as clear as possible.

Without any music at all, evensong probably lasts fifteen minutes. With music, it takes about 50 minutes to an hour. So the last several Wednesday night choir rehearsals, I rehearsed the choir on the Evensong music. Then I brought in four or five strong readers from other churches (one or two in each section) to run through the whole thing with us the previous Thursday evening. Everyone seemed pretty enthusiastic the whole time. It’s a wonderfully loving group.

Sunday arrived, we sang our morning service, I found an old metal Evensong sign, placed it under our church sign, and began getting ready for the evening. I wore my doctoral hood over the cassock and cotta (I’m told this is a common practice in this tradition). The rector wore her blue cope, tippet, etc. I dimmed the nave lights about halfway down, had the candle sconces along the walls filled and lit, put the two hymn numbers in the wooden sign up front, then when 4:30 hit, I rehearsed the preces and responses with the rector and choir. Then we timed the psalm chant one more time and ran the anthem. From there, we robed up our guests and began the service with an exquisite new work by Frederik Magle for clarinet and organ. To get the congregation’s attention, right on the nose of 5:30, I rang the bell outside (my first time on the task!). The choir sang the whole service from behind the congregation, so what they saw was the full text itself and a dark, candlelit altar at the front.

It was a lovely service with lots of space for prayer, contemplation, and loitering among the ideas of Advent. This was hopefully a nice break from the wild holiday rush, the breaks in routines, the rise of stressful familial expectations, and the reminders of sad changes in relationships that might have happened since the previous year. Here’s a recording of it all. Credit for recording goes to Jacob Efaw, one of my voice students.