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‘Come all ye faithful’
Concert raises funds, Christmas cheer
By Andrew Junker, The Catholic Sun
December 20, 2007
Getting ready for Christmas can take some time and preparation, particularly if you’re in the choir at either St. Mary’s Basilica or St. Maria Goretti Parish in Scottsdale.
They started prepping for their combined Christmas concert this past July, five very necessary months ago, considering their main performance piece was Vivaldi’s “Gloria.”
“For an amateur choir, yeah, it’s ambitious,” said Gordon Stevenson, director of music at St. Mary’s Basilica.
Many of his choir members had little experience reading music, so Stevenson provided them with CDs of the composition so they could learn by listening.
“I know these guys were playing these CDs all the time in their cars, going to work, going to the shopping mall, whatever,” he said. “Back in August, there was a lot of intimidation, but then to hear them perform — it was just amazing.”
His choir performed the “Gloria” with St. Maria Goretti’s choir at the basilica Dec. 7. The next weekend, they repeated the performance at the Scottsdale parish.
Ann Weiss, St. Maria Goretti’s director of music and liturgy, said it made sense to combine choirs for a song like the “Gloria” because it needs a lot of voices to sound full. There were more than 50 singers in the combined choirs.
But another reason the parishes got together was to show solidarity in fundraising. St. Maria Goretti restored its pipe organ last year and now the basilica is raising funds to purchase one of its own.
Weiss suggested that the combined choirs perform a fundraising concert at the basilica and then perform one the next weekend up at St. Maria Goretti.
The plan was successful with around 600 people filling the downtown church for the concert, though there’s still a lot of money to be raised, Stevenson admitted.
“These things can cost up to $1 million,” he said. “Right now we’ve raised about $15,000.”
In the 1980s the basilica replaced its original pipe organ with an electric one. Now its speakers are starting to fade, and rather than replace them, the parish decided to invest in an instrument that should last them a couple hundred years.
Most of the money needed to purchase the organ will come from grants.
“But we want the people to feel that this is their project, so we want to raise as much as we can so they really feel like they’re contributing,” he said.
The concert attendees’ contribution didn’t end at the door where they made their donation, though. After performing the “Gloria,” the choirs and audience sang some Christmas carols together.
It was a good way to get ready for Christmas, said Fr. Vince Mesi, OFM, rector of St. Mary’s Basilica.
“We are Franciscans here,” he said after the performance, “and I would be remiss not to bring up St. Francis at Christmas time. Many of us know that it was St. Francis, himself, who gave us the wonderful tradition of the manger.”
Likewise, Fr. Mesi said, “this evening’s concert has been one way for us to usher in the wonderful celebration of Christmas.”
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