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It practically gallops!

Merten Call

The resemblance between Dr. Alan Merten and David Letterman never struck me until I saw Merten’s reaction to being surprised by a group of singing employees. The outgoing president of George Mason University got a musical send-off from the staff in the Human Resources Department. They wrote new lyrics to “Moves Like Jagger,” making it “Moves Like Merten.”

GMU may be doing some moving itself. A rumor resurfaced yesterday that the Patriots are considering leaving the Colonial Athletic Association and joining the Atlantic 10 Conference. The move could give Mason a better chance of receiving an at-large bid to future NCAA tournaments.

I wonder if David Letterman still has the George Mason sweatshirt I gave him 27 years ago.

April 21, 2012 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

This Is the Night

The Easter Proclamation, or Exultet, is ideally to be sung by a deacon. If not a deacon, then a priest or cantor sings the difficult piece at the start of the Easter Vigil. The plan at All Saints Church was for Fr. David Carter to sing it but he was summoned to be the master of ceremonies at Sacred Heart Cathedral. He also found out that Bishop Stika has temporarily assigned him to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in LaFollette to fill-in for an ailing Fr. Joe Campbell. Fr. Joe, a/k/a Kodiak Joe, was pictured on my blog in 2008.

With Fr. David unavailable, the staff at All Saints asked my wife to sing the Exultet with only a few days notice. She has sung it in the past, but this year she had to learn the new translation in the Roman Missal. Her voice was clear and beautiful as she chanted the nine-minute proclamation a capella. I recorded it on her Walkman and although the acoustics aren’t perfect, you can appreciate how good her voice sounds.

My wife and I both had to concentrate on our roles in the Mass and ignore the sounds of children in the congregation. When my wife sang the Exultet, the members of the assembly each held a candle. At the end of the song, they extinguished the candles. When I read the creation story from the Book of Genesis, the only lights in the church were the Paschal Candle and a small reading lamp mounted on the ambo. The darkened church might be the reason the children in the crowd were more restless.

Both audio files are posted below.

All Saints Easter Vigil 2012 - Jere Sings Exultet Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
All Saints Easter Vigil 2012 - Frank Reads Genesis Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

April 8, 2012 | Filed Under Catholic | 2 Comments 

Maundy through Friday

Fr. Ragan Schriver’s father has been recuperating from a fall for the past couple of weeks. Yesterday I tagged along as my wife and four of her fellow choir members visited him in the hospital. They sang “Amazing Grace” because it’s Bob Schriver’s favorite hymn. Then they sang three songs from the previous night’s Holy Thursday service: “Ave Verum,” “How Beautiful” and “Servant Song.” When they asked if the family members wanted to hear anything else, Julia Schriver said, “Yes, number 555!” She knew the hymn number for “Lead Me, Guide Me” just like she was a teenager choosing her favorite song from the jukebox.

In a thank-you text to the singers, Fr. Ragan said that their visit to his dad would make great homily material. I wonder if he’ll mention that one of the male singers had an electronic pitch pipe that seemed to trigger the hospital’s intercom system every time he sounded it.

The Mass of the Lord’s Supper, celebrated on Holy Thursday, is one of my favorite rites. It includes the washing of the feet and concludes with a solemn procession to the altar of repose. At All Saints Church, the main celebrant this year was Fr. John Appiah. He talked about how feet were extremely filthy in Biblical times and how the job of washing people’s feet fell not just to any servant or slave but to the lowliest of them. By washing his apostles’ feet, Jesus turned the custom on its head.

At All Saints, anyone who sits on an aisle will have their feet washed by a priest or deacon. Additionally, twelve parishioners are asked to come to the front and sit on chairs near the altar. My wife and I were among the twelve. Before Mass, Fr. John had approached me in the Narthex and said I would be number ten of the twelve in front. I thought he was randomly choosing people who had arrived early. Later I found out that my wife had been asked to represent the choir. I got a little choked up when I heard Fr. John softly thank each of the twelve parishioners with a specific comment. He thanked Bill Christensen for all his work with the Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. He thanked my wife for her singing and he thanked me for “all my voices” and volunteering. I think he was referring to my emcee jobs at the Catholic Charities dinner and Kids Helping Kids Fun Walk as well as at several parish functions.

On Palm Sunday, Fr. John was the celebrant at the 8:15 a.m. Mass when I played the part of the narrator. At the Easter Vigil tonight, my wife will sing a very difficult piece called the Exultet and I will proclaim the first reading, which is the creation story from the book of Genesis.

April 7, 2012 | Filed Under Catholic | 1 Comment 

Jinkies, Jenkins!

As more and more viewers of “Dancing with the Stars” jump aboard the Katherine Jenkins bandwagon, I can point to a year-old blog post that I wrote about her singing voice. I have enough credit on my Amazon.com account to buy one of her albums. I’m having a hard time choosing just one. My first reaction is to buy either “One Fine Day” or “Serenade” but I’m going to have to listen to all the 20-second samples that Amazon offers before deciding. So far, I seem to be partial to her covers of songs I recognize, like this version of an old Bryan Adams song:

April 4, 2012 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

Ritzy Quackers

“There once was an ugly duckling, with feathers all stubby and brown,” sang Danny Kaye in the film “Hans Christian Andersen.” The movie was one of my family’s favorites when I was growing up. The story of the ugly duckling has been on my mind because of my plans for the weekend.

Oak Ridge Civic Ballet Association poster for "The Ugly Duckling" and "Masquerade" The Oak Ridge Civic Ballet Association invited me to be the narrator for their production of “The Ugly Duckling.” At the rehearsal last weekend, I thought about how much my wife will enjoy watching the performance this Saturday. Many of the dancers also appeared in “The Nutcracker” last December. The music consists of selections by Vivaldi, Nedbal and others. There’s a piece of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” at the point the Duckling realizes her true self.

Performances are at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 31 at the Oak Ridge High School auditorium. ORCBA’s Facebook page lists several area merchants who are selling discounted tickets to the show. It also has photos from the first dress rehearsal. The costumes for the ducks, chickens and other creatures are terrific.

March 28, 2012 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

The Phantom Knows

In the days before DVRs, I would have popped out the tab on the VHS tape immediately after recording “The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall”. Now, I wonder how long I will have room to save the show on my DVR. The excellent production starred Ramin Karimloo as The Phantom and Sierra Boggess as Christine. After the curtain calls, there was a special guest appearance by Sarah Brightman and past Phantoms Michael Crawford, Peter Jöback, John Owen-Jones, Anthony Warlow, and Colm Wilkinson. The group sang an amazing version of the title song.

East Tennessee PBS pledge drive - March 11, 2012 - Frank Murphy at "Premium Desk/Monitor" The special episode of “Great Performances” aired on East Tennessee PBS during their quarterly pledge drive last night. I solicited pledges on-air from the premium desk while volunteers from the Knoxville Opera worked the phones. They cranked the volume on the studio monitor during the musical. Earlier in the evening, the phones were staffed by a group from a website called “What’s Happening George?”

“The Phantom of the Opera” is one of the few stage productions I’ve seen more than once. My first experience was at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The tickets were a gift from my mother-in-law, who also gave tickets to my wife’s sisters and their husbands. My wife and I saw the play at least twice more in Los Angeles. I remember taking our kids to see it when they were old enough. The song “All I Ask of You” has special meaning in our family. My wife and her friend Clint Butler sang the duet at the weddings of several of their friends and classmates.

Watch Clip from The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall on PBS. See more from Great Performances.

March 12, 2012 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments 

Generally Sherman

Hearing news reports about the death of Robert Sherman was like listening to a soundtrack of my childhood. He and his brother wrote songs for many iconic movies from my youth. “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” remains one of my all-time favorite films. “Mary Poppins” is the first movie I remember seeing in a theatre.

The much-maligned “It’s a Small World (After All)” debuted not at Disneyland but at the New York World’s Fair. Visiting the Fair is another of my earliest memories.

Because the Shermans are so associated with Disney, I did not realize that they had also written songs for non-Disney films such as “Charlotte’s Web,” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and “Snoopy, Come Home.” My father sang “No Dogs Allowed” for years after taking us to see “Snoopy, Come Home” at a drive-in theatre in the Hamptons.

“The Sherman Brothers Songbook” is a two-disc set with 59 amazing songs like “The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room.” I added the album to my wishlist even though I already have most of the songs in other compilations. Looking up information on the Shermans also led me to discover that they wrote a song that Don & Mike used to play at WAVA for its camp value. I can still picture the tape cart for “Pineapple Princess” with my friend Bean’s handwriting on the label.

March 8, 2012 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment 

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