BEAUTY & BELONGING

10

by Joel Martinson

When asked by musical colleagues and others outside the Dallas area how I would describe the Church of the Transfiguration, I tell them “Transfiguration is the largest normal Episcopal church in the Diocese of Dallas, like a large Episcopal parish or cathedral in any other area of the country.” We uphold the canons and constitution of the Episcopal Church, abide by the decisions of the General Convention, do our best to live by our baptismal covenant to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself,” and “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.” We also have a long-established tradition of rich liturgy and fine music carefully-orchestrated and as beautifully-executed as we can make it at the time. We are grounded in the tradition of classical church music which has been handed down to us, but also celebrate the work of liturgists, poets, and musicians of the Episcopal Church active in the last half of the 20th century through our present day.

As the Transfiguration Choir has grown and developed over the last 17 years, we have been privileged to acquire some very fine amateur and professional singers from all over the country, whose former choir directors have sent them our way. One of the attractions of a good-sounding choir which sings quality music is that trained musicians want to join it, adding their voice to the chorus, and, in doing so, finding a community (choir) within a community (parish). Several of our singers came to the Episcopal Church from different faith traditions when they were hired as staff singers for Episcopal parishes during their college years. A number of these musicians have chosen Transfiguration because of its music and other ministries and have volunteered to share their voice each week. Currently we have over a dozen volunteers who have served as paid section leaders at one time in their life in addition to our six paid staff singers. Over twenty persons hold at least one degree in music. Transfiguration has the largest adult choir in the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas, with 53 active singers. We also are unique among the largest churches of the diocese in that we have a predominantly volunteer choir, with 47 auditioned volunteers joining the paid singers. During the pandemic we rehearsed using safety protocols when COVID-19 cases subsided in Dallas County, and in Lent began singing in chamber choirs centered on our section leaders. Since June we have employed the full choir roster divided into either four smaller groups or our normal two (one choir singing at each Sunday service). During this time, only one pre-pandemic choir member has not participated in any activities, and a couple more have come in and come out as circumstances changed. I have learned recently what a rarity this is for us to have over 95 percent of their prepandemic choir still involved, as many of my colleagues’ choirs here and elsewhere have been severely reduced or outright decimated since March 2020. This speaks so highly of our choir’s commitment and the strong community that has been built here.

The day after Epiphany, when I had engineered another “course-correction” for our choir routine, given the Omicron surge in DFW, and received many positive responses of understanding from the singers, I remarked to David that I was fortunate to have the choir I have during these often-trying times. I still remember a poignant comment from a verger at Bristol Cathedral when we first sang there for an Evensong in 2013: “we get two kinds of choirs through here – one that is nice and very easy to deal with but isn’t all that good musically, and another that makes very fine music but is really difficult to host. Yours is the best of both worlds: nice people who make beautiful music together.” I am thankful for the opportunity to lead this choir and the music at this very special Church of the Transfiguration!