The stellar Choir of Saint John’s in the Village from Baltimore Maryland was selected to be the guest choral ensemble for the 8 October 2023 11.00AM Mass or Festal Eucharist at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue. They replaced the currently touring Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys. They are doing a tour of the southern US.

The Choir of Saint John’s performed splendidly singing with perfect intonation in all voice sections and excellent diction. I was just wondering: Are or have any of these choristers been connected with the renowned Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore? They had a Renaissance repertoire prepared for Saint Thomas which they performed superbly.

I wanted to feature this Choir because of their size: 11 voices. As I have said before, perfect intonation applies to all Choirs regardless of their size, whether it’s 11 or fewer voices or a Symphony Chorus of 200 voices, such as the 200 voice Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus under Robert Shaw.

Being someone who wears glasses, I especially liked the blue-purple glasses frames of one of the choristers in the back row. They matched his cassock and the lenses also looked like they had a blue-purple tint to them but I think that was probably a reflection.

But I did have a complaint although not with the choristers. I suspect this falls on Jeremy Filsell. Why didn’t their sopranos sing the same parts of the service music that the trebles sing when they’re there? This has happened repeatedly. I don’t know why Jeremy doesn’t pass that on to the Director of the visiting Choirs. But consistently, the visiting Choir’s soprano section is left singing the (boring) part that everyone else is singing rather than the part written for their upper register.

By the way, the congregation sang the hymn “Amazing Grace” before The Gospel reading and I don’t think it could have been played more boring and dull than it was. “Dry as dust” and “by the book” with subdued organ registration. If Jeremy Bruns were there, he would have played it full organ and rather quickly and grand and glorious, similar to the way he played “Rock of Ages.” The same with “Jesus, Shall Reign” which was the recessional hymn.

As I have written before, the hymn playing at Saint Thomas these days is so drab, dull and boring, as if they are afraid of the organ, especially now that the Choirmaster has abandoned most descants for the boys.

The hymn playing was so much better during the days of Jeremy Bruns and pre-COVID. Some people had this look on their face during “Amazing Grace” as if they were thinking: How many more verses of this thing do we have? Yes, that’s the outcome when there’s nothing special going on with the organ and each verse is played the same, monotonous because of a lack of creativity from the Organist.

And of course when it came time for the thurifer to cense the congregation, most looked disinterested and didn’t take part in that. Very few bowed to the thurifer. Why are these people even there? I’ll never understand this. They come to an Anglo-Catholic parish to be Low Church. Don’t try to figure that out! They would be much better suited for a Southern Baptist church — isn’t there one somewhere in NYC? — based on their Low Church behaviour.

But I thoroughly enjoyed the Choir of Saint John’s in the Village from Baltimore. They made the Liturgy special. Their parish is fortunate to have them. Too bad they didn’t bring their Organist with them. Maybe s/he could have brought some life to the drab, dull, boring, monotonous, “by the book” hymn playing at Saint Thomas.