“What is the New Cathedral Project’?”
We were in a meeting envisioning our capital campaign next fall. The New Cathedral Project was on a list of things we want to fund, so it’s a reasonable question. But I found myself fumbling with how to explain it.
Basically, it means we’re at the source for the best “contemporary” worship music being written. We’re not just receiving it from others. John Arndt has helped his band “The Brilliance” and collectives like “Porter’s Gate” to write songs that fit our theology and aesthetic beautifully. We will continue to borrow good music wherever we find it, and disproportionate amounts of popular contemporary worship music comes from Pentecostal settings in Australia and California.
But this project comes partly from us. Our lead singers will be on Jon Guerra’s next album—and it’s been hard for us to get through a Sunday lately without drawing on Guerra’s songs. We sang a booming “Christ is Risen” piece on Easter Sunday that I’d assumed had been around the church for centuries. Turns out, Guerra had written it just a few weeks before. That was its world premier.
As soon as Jon Guerra saw a clip of the video, he knew he had to come visit us in person. He could see what we in-house already know: we have good people making good music. We have the openness to try things, the skills to learn music, (and quickly!), an arranger/producer (John Arndt) who’s magical in reimagining simple songs to orchestrated harmonies, a conductor (Elaine) who brings people together and lifts black dots on paper to sweet music in your ears, and a team (Olivia, Stephen, musicians) that are always ready to jump in and help one another shine. We truly have a special community.
The Project is John Arndt’s effort to draw on what’s greatest from our musical heritage for present-day music making. We are doing this in partnership with another church with which he has worked closely—Good Shepherd in New York City. If you’ve been on social media and seen our choir singing traditional tunes filmed in a way that would make MTV jealous, then you’ve seen the fruit of this partnership. And 1000s of viewers have.
Elaine Choi explains it this way—choirs of great churches like ours used to produce CD’s of their music and tour Europe every other summer or so. Now their music goes online to YouTube, and touring Europe is no longer necessary to get our work out there (we still have unsold CD’s from our last production somewhere in the building!). Effectively this is how choirs expand their music ministry beyond the walls now—by producing something that sounds and looks both ancient and trustworthy and sensitive to our present day.
I’ve admired John Arndt’s music for bringing the ancient and the present together since before I knew him or got to work with him at TEMC. Now that he and Elaine are working together, I’m amazed to see the future of music before the rest of the world does.
TEMC has always been a place trying to draw on antiquity and the cutting edge both. That’s why we built a building in 1915 to look like it dates from 1115, why we put in a chancel in 1938 to look like the Anglican cathedral spaces of the Anglo-Catholic renewal that inspired Lady Eaton. We’ve just not done so with what’s often called “contemporary” music. Now we’re not just downriver from the source of that music. We’re at the source, helping contribute to the songs that will transform us and others for years to come.
Check out some music and the full playlist here.