Celebrate Trinity Sunday with a Jazz Mass

Sunday, May 26, 2024
11:00 am • Church


On most Sunday mornings, the music offered at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville embodies the best of the Anglican Cathedral tradition, but on Sunday, May 26, Trinity Sunday, the peals of innovative jazz will fill the sanctuary at the 11 a.m. service as the choir sings Bob Chilcott’s Little Jazz Mass, accompanied by the renowned Claudia Burson Trio.

“Our service incorporating the Little Jazz Mass represents an opportunity to perform a sacred work in the context for which it was written—not as a concert but as part of the Eucharist,” said Jack Cleghorn, organist and choirmaster at St. Paul’s. 

“Our music every Sunday ideally raises everyone’s consciousness to some place sacred and holy,” he added, “and the jazz mass expresses that intention in a way that may be new to many participants in the service.”

Chilcott, currently director of the BBC Singers and a founder of the King’s Singers, is one of the most popular composers and conductors in Britain today.  The Little Jazz Mass was composed for the 2004 Crescent City Choral Festival and incorporates the traditional texts of the Eucharist service—the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei—in settings reflecting twentieth-century jazz and blues.

“Trinity Sunday is an ideal day to incorporate the jazz mass in a service,” Cleghorn noted.  “We celebrate the mystery and wonder of three persons of God that day, and the surprising, innovative nature of Chilcott’s setting is a compelling invitation to contemplate and revel in the questions that the music raises.”

The public is welcome to worship at St. Paul’s on May 26 and, indeed, on every Sunday. 


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