Music

The Sacred is Clear

Music

The first music of the Cathedral is traditional Anglican church music, but we also celebrate earth music, early music, jazz, rock, Broadway, gospel, and programs from all around the world: Sephardic and Sufi songs, Japanese flutes, Tibetan chants, and African drums—to name just a few. As we say at the Cathedral, “All are welcome.”

“Glorious music fulfills its highest function by being transmuted into praise.”

CATHEDRAL ARCHIVES

PAUL WINTER Playing in the Cathedral is always a revelation. The first time I took my horn into the Cathedral, it was empty. I stood in the reverberating silence for a moment. When I began to play, the sound floated and hovered. It seemed to glow with a richness I had never known before. The acoustics here combine thousands of tiny echoes bouncing off all the surfaces at different distances. Each time, the glory of the sound is more magical than I had remembered.

KENT TRITLE The sacred element is absolutely clear here. You are hearing something beautiful surrounded by arches, stained glass, and all these objects of spiritual significance in the staggering dimensions of this space.

JESSYE NORMAN I’ve sung in cathedrals around the world. In some of the grand cathedrals, one can feel rather small and not a part of what is happening. But it isn’t the same here. This is a place where light and peace just grab you. Here, there is a oneness with the grandeur of the space that is not overwhelming to the spirit. One finds a beautiful feeling of calm and involvement always. I don’t know how else to describe it, but it isn’t like singing at a concert at all. It is something more personal about being in that space and making music. Even when the Church is full of so many people, when you are there you feel that it is happening just for you. I have been attached to the Cathedral since I was 21. That is a long relationship. JUDY COLLINS For a long time, I have sung at the Cathedral on Easter Morning and New Year’s Eve. When I first saw the Cathedral, I thought, “I need to sing in this place and I’m going to sing a capella here.” I usually wind up singing Amazing Grace. It is like a prayer not only for me, but for everybody in the Cathedral.

JOHN CLINTON EISNER A lot of the most profound experiences of being at the Cathedral are hearing the words spoken. But when you sing, it is even more beautiful: The lyrics are essentially in poetic form and so they become metaphoric.

DEAN KOWALSKI The best way to know what it is to be Anglican is to come to church and listen to how we pray and listen to our hymns.

BRUCE NESWICK Music and worship have been tied together as far back as we can trace. And that music has taken many forms. But in Christian services, the human voice has always been considered the most sacred and for centuries the only acceptable instrument.

BRUCE FIFER Who is singing? The music is part of the place, the place is part of the liturgy, the liturgy absorbs the congregation…. Who is singing? Who is singing is God. With me, in me, through me, is me.

KENT TRITLE The Cathedral looms large in the imagination of the city. The vision of what it can be both liturgically and secularly as an icon for New Yorkers is extraordinary. Music is the thing that can draw New Yorkers from different cultures here and because of the scale of the Cathedral, we can do it at a level other places only dream of.

An Acoustic Marvel

KENT TRITLE The Cathedral’s Great Organ is one of the top ten in America. The original organ is from 1911. It was renovated and expanded in 1954. Then, because there was no funding for repairs, it was virtually untouched through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Ironically, the silver lining was the 2001 fire. When our organ was restored it was essentially in its original condition. All of that makes it an extremely sought-after instrument for people who want to record or play concerts.

DAVID BRIGGS When I first came here the organ console looked as though it had chickenpox— many of the stops had little red dots stuck on them, which meant “these don’t work.” Since the magnificent restoration after the fire, the organ is one of the very finest instruments in the world.

“Rolling down the Cathedral came the brilliant notes of the organ rising up to the great arched vault in a curving wave of sound.”

MADELEINE L’ENGLE

DOUG HUNT The Great Organ has several extraordinary features, including the world famous State Trumpet above the Cathedral’s West End, one of the most powerful organ stops in the world. It is considered a masterpiece of American pipe organ building.

DEAN DANIEL When I was a very young priest, a group of my friends and I were invited up into the organ loft. A man welcomed us and said, “Why don’t you sit down and play? I said, “I can’t play the organ.” He said, “All right. Then just press that key.” So I pressed the key but nothing happened. I pressed it again. Nothing. Then I heard the state trumpet go “Waaaaeeeee.” The man explained that it takes seven seconds for sound to get from the back of the Cathedral to the front. I said, “So if you make a mistake, you don’t hear it for seven seconds?” He said, “Yes. So just keep playing.” I’ve used that same principle in services. If you stop, you’re lost so just keep on playing. It’s a great insight for life. KENT TRITLE Acoustically, this is a challenging environment. Understanding what’s going on in the room is hard. It’s a room and it’s a room of different rooms. The structure, the weightiness, the wood and the rock create different sounds in different parts of the Cathedral. If the sound is not done right, it can make a total jumble.

PAUL WINTER Purists might say there is not enough clarity. But these “live” acoustics generate a collective embrace that to me transcends those considerations. This tsunami of sound has a living spirit that speaks of life.

DAVID BRIGGS I believe strongly that people’s lives can be changed by organ music, especially in an ambience like St. John the Divine. It has something to do with the vibrations, which can affect the very deepest parts of our consciousness— no other instrument can really do this in quite the same way. The word “awesome” is often used colloquially, but every time this word does sum up the experience of playing in the Cathedral. You’re really aware of the infinite grandeur, warmth, and serenity of God.

Top Dean Daniel with Paul Winter at the Winter Solstice Celebration, December 2017.

Bottom left The final performance of the legendary Aretha Franklin at the Cathedral at the Elton John Foundation AIDS Foundation Benefit, November 7, 2017.

Bottom right The Cathedral contains six organs. The largest, the Great Organ, is located in the eastern loft. It was built by the Ernest M. Skinner Company in 1910 as Op. 150, and rebuilt and enlarged by G. Donald Harrison of Aeolian-Skinner in 1954 as Op. 150-A. After the 2001 fire, the Great Organ was restored by Quimby Pipe Organs of Warrensburgh, Missouri.

Performance and Choral Groups

KENT TRITLE Great Music in a Great Space is comprised of three concert series: the Great Choir choral series, the Great Organ recital series, and the holiday concerts for the Christmas season and New Year’s Eve.

Here we have a place that invokes so much imagination, and at the same time, knocks the socks off the people.

The members of our 14-voice professional Cathedral Choir include some of the city’s finest choral performers; many are accomplished soloists in their own right. The Cathedral Chorale is an auditioned volunteer choir with members from the neighborhood and greater New York City.

BRYAN ZAROS The Cathedral Choristers are an ensemble of 20-30 students from The Cathedral School’s 4th through 8th grade classes founded when The Cathedral School opened its doors in 1901. Performances have include concerts at Carnegie Hall, a music video with Placido Domingo and the Piano Guys, Evensong at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and residencies at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, and Westminster Abbey, London.

JENNIFER DORR WHITE At the end of third grade all the students have to audition for the Cathedral choir. When my daughter Hannah started at the School, she said, “I absolutely do not want to be in the choir.” So we were surprised when they called to say she got in. I went down to her bedroom and said, “Hannah, you’ve been accepted. Do you want to do it?” Immediately her face lit up, "Oh, I would love to!" BISHOP DIETSCHE We have concerts here because that music is an expression of the Glory of God. It is an expression of what we must say as people, as creatures, of what we must say back to God. And we say it in the form of these incredible pieces of music, the language of a great Handel oratorio, the wonderful poetic expressions of the songs. All of this is here in the Cathedral because music is a way that we lift ourselves up before God. We express the beauty of the creation, the wonder of God and then we well up with it and give it back.

PHILIPPE PETIT There is something otherworldly about listening to the song of prayers. Sometimes, in the evening, you hear the beautiful songs and see the procession with the candles that finish the day from above. It is a trip to the Middle Ages.

Top Kent Tritle, Director of Cathedral Music and organist.

Center Wynton Marsalis leads his Dixieland Band up the Nave.

Bottom left The Cathedral Choristers.

Bottom right Drummers from the Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, Cathedral Artists in Residence.