Holy Week Worship Schedule

Maundy Thursday Gathering

April 6, 5:00 p.m.

Feel free to arrive early to gather and visit before a potluck meal at 5:00 p.m.  Following the meal, we will have a bible study on the subject of Maundy Thursday, a time of prayer and hymn-sing.

Good Friday Service

April 7, 6:00 p.m.

A stark and solemn service of music, scripture, and tenebrae, representing the passion of Jesus Christ and the loss of hope felt by the disciples.

Easter Sunday

April 9, 10:00 a.m.

The Celebration of the resurrection, the empty tomb, undying hope, and the victory of love over violence, the Festival of Easter is a highlight of every church year.  We will share Holy Communion and celebrate with the music and scriptures of Easter.

Friday, February 10

6:45 p.m. Pre-concert talk

7:30 p.m. Concert

*join us afterward for a reception

Tickets

$20 (in advance)

$25 (at the door)

$10 (students with ID)

Some of the most beautiful, forgotten musical gems were created in the early Baroque period (before around 1660). Splendors from Baroque Italy showcases some of these musical treasures. From love songs to sacred pieces, and musical acrobatics to technical brilliance you’ll be enthralled with everything this performance has to offer. This performance features a varied selection of vocal and instrumental works for numerous instrumental combinations. English translations of all sung texts will be projected for this performance.

Musicians
Alyssa Anderson, mezzo-soprano
Maryne Mossey, viola da gamba/’cello
Michael Thomas Asmus, harpsichord

For more information, please visit www.lagrandebande.org/tickets or 507-237-6539.

Coffee Concert Here at Olivet: The Paperclips Trombone Quartet

Produced by The Saint Paul Conservatory of Music

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

12:00 PM 1:00 PM

Join us for a Coffee Concert featuring SPCM faculty member Lauren Husting and her trombone quartet members Chris Allen, Brooklynne Audette, and Ben Bussey.

Since 2003, the Coffee Concert series has provided a dynamic noontime concerts that offer high-caliber performances to Saint Paul audiences.

All performances are at noon and are FREE to the public.

For more information about the coffee hour concerts and The Saint Paul Conservatory of Music, please visit their website: https://thespcm.org/

Friday, November 11

String Quartets by Haydn, Brunetti, and Charles Villiers Stanford played on gut strings

6:30 p.m. Pre-concert talk

7:30 p.m. Concert

Tickets

$20 (in advance)

$25 (at the door)

$10 (students with ID)

Nothing is more synonymous with chamber music than the string quartet. Once used as a compositional training tool for young composers in the classical era, the string quartet became an avenue in which composers of all ages could experiment with new techniques or show off their musical achievements. From Mozart, to Haydn, to Elgar, composers across generations and countries found themselves a home in the genre famous for its pair of violins, viola, and violoncello serenading both players and listeners.

In this concert, La Grande Bande’s quartet of string players will perform selections by Austrian composer Josef Haydn, Italian-born and Spanish-employed Gaetano Brunetti, and English composer Sir Hubert Parry. Join us for an exciting and intimate evening of quartets written between 1774 (Brunetti) and 1878 (Parry) in two beautiful and historic venues.

For more information, please visit www.lagrandebande.org/tickets  or 507-237-6539.

We would like to invite you to join us this spring for Sospiri del Corpo While our music director, Nerea Berraondo, will not be able to join us from Spain this time, we are very pleased to welcome guest artists Maria Jette, soprano, and Tulio Rondón, baroque cellist.

Bodily imagery has long inspired poets and composers to some of their finest works. From beautiful eyes, to golden hair and enticing lips, we explore the fascinations of the body through early music. Vocal and instrumental duets from Sances, D'India, Schütz, Strozzi and others form the core of the program.

Sospiri del Corpo will be presented:

Saturday, May 21st at 7:30pm - Olivet Congregational Church - 1850 Iglehart Ave, St. Paul

Sunday, May 22nd at 4:00pm - Hennepin Ave. United Methodist - Art Gallery - 511 Groveland Ave, Minneapolis

Tickets are $20 or pay-as-able. $20 tickets are available now on our website at https://www.sospiri.org/sospiri-del-corpo/

This concert is made possible by the generous support of our donors. Thank you!

With the current Covid outlook, we are planning on masks and vaccinations required.

Hope to see you there! - Janna Kysilko and Sospiri

Friday, April 8th 7:30 p.m.

MISERERE: Music for Holy Week

Our concert begins with three Responsori of Holy Week of Roman composer Bonifazio Graziani (1604-1664).

These are set for SATB choir and continuo. We welcome four guest singers from St Paul church choirs in joining the ensemble for this first part of our concert. Welcome Adelia Chrysler, Laura Potratz, Chuck Watt, Andrew De Young.

In between each Responsoria, the First and Second lessons of matins (from Lamentations) are sung by solo voices accompanied by a full continuo. These are Motets of Giacomo Carissimi that Garrick Comeaux transcribed from messy manuscripts.

Then follows a setting of Miserere Psalm 51 by the Northern Italian composer, Biagio Marini (1594-1663).

Set for two violins and SATB choir and continuo, this early print publication (entitled The Tears of David from 1665 in Venice) contains four settings of the Latin Psalm text. We will perform the fourth setting which is the largest and most stunning of all.

We will conclude our concert program with Bach’s magnificent Motet Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227.

For more information and to order tickets, please click on the following link:

https://consortiumcarissimi.org/

Local artists Leo Hawkins and Nici Peper will perform, as well as other local musicians at Olivet Congregational Church, 1850 Iglehart Avenue in St. Paul, Saturday, September 8, beginning at 7 p.m.

Leo Hawkins has performed with Sounds of Blackness, at a tribute to Curtis Mayfield, and also performed while in the military during the Vietnam War. Nici Peper, a soulful singer-songwriter, influenced by gospel music and storytellers, has recorded in Nashville, and also won the title “Most Authentic Artist” in Minneapolis in a contest in 2016. Also joining us are Jim Walsh, a Twin Cities music journalist, author, songwriter and musician and Maya Elena, a songwriter and singer whose music is lyrical, imaginative, and embracing. A hair of folk, a dash of jazz, a sprinkle of sass, this soulful songbird evades solitary description and time signatures when she's apart from her band, Illusion Valley. Performing as well will be Justin Jay Arnold, a respected songwriter from the Chippewa Valley who expresses vivid lyrics sung by a soulful, honest heart.

Join us prior to the concert for a Latin themed buffet along with music performed by the Liliana and Harold duo starting at 6 p.m. Liliana and Harold have been performing together for over 20 years, beginning in Venezuela where they met, and continued performing Latin music throughout their travels across the Mediterranean islands. Their music is a blend of Latin sounds and world music.

All are welcome! A free will offering will be collected to benefit the children and their families by providing legal aid and advocacy for immigrants.

If you are unable to attend and would like to make a donation, you may click on either of the following links to two great organizations that provide legal services to immigrant families:

https://www.raicestexas.org/

http://caraprobono.org/

Olivetian’s will be traveling to Mankato to meet the group of Dakota who will arrive in Mankato on December 26. We will be following their progress during the season of Advent. Please keep posted for more information regarding a carpool for those who are interested in joining us. If you would like to join us, please include your name on the sign-up sheet in Fellowship Hall.

We continue the long-standing Olivet tradition of “The Festival Lessons and Carols.” The texts and carols outline the Biblical story of humanity’s fall, the promise of a Messiah, and the birth of Jesus.  The service concludes with the beautiful Service of Light as our individual candles shine together in the Sanctuary’s darkness.   

Two Christmas services:

5:00 p.m.

10:30 p.m.

* The second service is longer, is accompanied by the choir, and includes a few additional readings. Refreshments following worship.  

All are welcome to join the traditional singing school on Friday, 9/23 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., and also for the convention, on Saturday, 9/24 from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Shapenote singers from across the country will gather for the 27th Annual Minnesota Sacred Harp Convention.  Local singers have hosted this event since 1990 and it will draw visitors from over a dozen states.

Shapenote singing has been done as a living musical tradition in Southern states since the early parts of the 19th century. Although there are a few exceptions, most of the music is religious or spiritual in subject. In the late 60’s and early 70’s, Sacred Harp singing was taken up in several Northern-State urban locations.  Many of the singers gathering in the Twin Cities have learned this music from singers who were born into the Southern tradition.  A few of those Southern singers will be attending. Please join us!

Collegium Musicum: Music of the Renaissance
August 27. 10:00 am registration - 3:00 pm show
TCEMF offers even another way to engage with early music: through group playing and singing in the Festival Collegium! Inspired by the music of the festival movie, "Draw On, Sweet Night," we will meet to read and learn music from the Renaissance, concluding with a short performance of our efforts in the afternoon. Tickets can be purchased at the door: $20 adult, $15 student, or online: at http://www.tcearlymusic.org/, click on “calendar,” wait for the calendar to populate, and select the concert. Any questions, call Buffy Larson at 651-428-5170.
Schedule: 10:00 a.m. Registration, 10:30 -12:30 Rehearsal in small groups, 12:30 -1:00 Break, 1:00 -2:30 Tutti rehearsal, 3:00 p.m. Grand Performance.

Thomas Walker Jr., started classical guitar lessons at age 10 and a couple years later acquired an interest in the 12-string guitar stylings of Leo Kottke.  After college, he studied jazz guitar independently, and became increasingly fascinated with early music.  He bought his first lute in 1992. Since then, Thomas has performed with Ensemble Polaris, Consortium Carissimi (stateside), the Rose Ensemble, and various members of the Lyra Baroque. Tickets can be purchased online at tcearlymusic.org, or at the door: $15 adult, $10 student.

Love 60’s style folk music, protest songs, gospel music?  Then join friends and neighbors at Olivet Congregational Church, 1850 Iglehart Avenue, St. Paul, 55104, on Wednesday, June 8, at 6:45 p.m., for a sing-along, led by guitars and other assorted instruments of the era.  Songbooks and snacks provided, all ages and musical abilities welcome!  Handicapped access available at courtyard entrance along Dewey Street, one block west of Fairview.  Bell bottom pants, flowered dresses and mini-skirts optional!

Olivet Congregational church will again go to the Crow Creek Reservation for its annual build with Dacotah Tipis Habitat. We invite you to join us. The trip starts after worship on August 14 and continues through August 20. Work includes new construction, home repairs and other service projects beginning Monday and through Friday morning.

While we are there we participate in cross cultural experiences with these people, descendants of our first Minnesotans. They arrived here in 1863 after they were banned from Minnesota following their deadly internment below Fort Snelling. Our trip concludes with their annual Pow Wow, which draws people from Canada to Southern California.

We are housed in a comfortable visitor's center in Fort Thompson, SD. Fort Thompson is at the center of the reservation and part of the poorest county in the US.

To learn more about Dakota Tipis visit their web site at http://www.dacotahtipis.org/ and contact Philip Friedlund at isenb006@umn.edu for additional information. Please join us or choose another week for your group. You will find the experience life changing.

On April 13, Rashad Turner, candidate for the District 65A seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives and organizer of Black Lives Matter St. Paul, will speak on the issues which he hopes to be able to fight for in the state legislature. Please join us at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 13, at Olivet Congregational Church, 1850 Iglehart Avenue in St. Paul.

Growing up in Frogtown and going to Highland Park High School, Turner wanted to become a policeman.  But after earning a BA in criminal justice from Hamline University and starting the law enforcement certification program, he had a change of heart.  For the next 5 years he devoted himself to working in education.  Then, at Selma’s commemoration of Bloody Sunday last March, he had another change of heart.   In a year in which more than 100 unarmed black people were killed by police, including Marcus Golden and Jamar Clark, Turner began organizing Black Lives Matter protests in St. Paul.

Turner will speak about the causes he will fight for if elected to represent District 65A in the Minnesota House — addressing the gaps dividing us in education, jobs, housing, and the administration of justice.

Jonathan Odell, author of The Healing, and Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League will speak about “How I Overcame My Soul-Crippling, Deep-South Addiction to Whiteness…” at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 16, at Olivet Congregational Church, 1850 Iglehart Avenue in St. Paul.

“In Mississippi, the drug of choice is racial superiority. But there are ways to kick the habit.

I am a Mississippian as well as my family’s most notorious drunk. But six years into sobriety, I discovered that alcohol wasn’t my only addiction. Even more insidious was my soul-crippling dependence upon whiteness. I couldn't get through the day without seven or eight stiff shots of feeling superior. That began to change when I decided to write novels about Mississippi. I knew very little outside the white-bubble in which I was raised, and therefore was blind to the story of nearly half the population. Only after interviewing hundreds of black Mississippians, listening to their stories, did I begin to fathom the immensity of the lie behind my superiority and the real cost of my addiction.” For more information on Odell, please check out http://www.jonathanodell.net/.

R.T. Rybak, Executive Director of Generation Next, will speak about “Why Closing the Achievement and Opportunity Gaps is Our Greatest Challenge and Opportunity” at 6:30 p.m. on February 24, at Olivet Congregational Church, 1850 Iglehart Avenue in St. Paul. When it comes to developing the next generation workforce in the Twin Cities, it is the best of times and the worst of times.  On one hand, we face one of the largest achievement gaps in the country.  On the other hand, we have unprecedented student diversity with nearly unlimited global potential.  How can we fix the deficits and mine the assets of our next generation?

R.T. Rybak served as Mayor of Minneapolis from 2002-2013, and is currently Executive Director of Generation Next, a broad partnership of organizations and leaders from across Minneapolis and St. Paul dedicated to educational excellence and narrowing the achievement and opportunity gap.