New Orleans Cathedral's Bicentennial Celebrated in Thanksgiving Special
Episcopal News Service. October 21, 2005 [102105-02]
A 30-minute television special marking the bicentennial of Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans will be broadcast on the Time Warner Cable network on Thanksgiving Day, November 24 (check local schedules for broadcast time).
The program will also be webcast. For details on how to receive the webcast, go to: www.comeandgrow.org.
The program, produced by the Episcopal Church's Office of Communication, will include excerpts from a new work, All the Saints, by the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra's 16-member big band at the cathedral, as well as Solemn Evensong conducted by Canon John Peterson of Washington National Cathedral and a festival Eucharist celebrated by Louisiana Bishop Charles Jenkins.
The events to be included in the broadcast originally were intended to mark the bicentennial anniversary of the day when the Rev. Philander Chase -- later the first bishop of both Ohio and Illinois -- conducted the first service of Christ Church, the first non-Roman Catholic Church in the Louisiana Purchase territories, at a public building on Jackson Square called the Cabildo, on November 17, 1805.
After the city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina on August 29, the staff of the cathedral was determined to continue with the celebration while remembering all that had happened during the hurricane and its aftermath.
All the Saints, commissioned by the cathedral through its concert fund with contributions from Anglicans around the world, is a project that has long simmered in the hearts and minds of the dean of New Orleans' Episcopal cathedral and one of the city's quintessential musicians. It will become a reality in part thanks to hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The Very Rev. David duPlantier and Irvin Mayfield, Grammy-nominated trumpet artist and founding artistic director of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, met a few years ago when Mayfield and others played jazz at a wedding at which the dean officiated. They became friends and soon began talking about whether the cathedral might commission Mayfield to compose a piece of music.
All the Saints "is a gift from the Episcopal Church to the people of the City of New Orleans who have suffered so much. It's a way of laying to rest all that has happened while remembering to move forward in God's grace as we begin the process of rebuilding," duPlantier says on the cathedral's website, http://www.cccnola.org.
"The piece will essentially embody a New Orleans jazz funeral," Mayfield says on the website. "It will consist of three major movements: first there will be a jazz funeral -- here the music will resemble a slow funeral march proceeding down the streets of New Orleans in which the corpse of the former New Orleans will be carried; second there will be a memorial service -- after we have marched the deceased city down the streets, there will be a memorial service and the music will reflect this by memorializing the tragedy that occurred in the aftermath of Katrina; and third there will be a celebratory procession -- as naturally occurred in the streets of New Orleans, the music will celebrate life and glory, and a processional, a second line, will take us out of death and into the next phase, which is rebirth."
Mayfield says that the historic music will be a blues piece that will include Negro spirituals, chain gang chants, call-and-response, and field hollers rolled into a big jazz funeral event. Using jazz, with its blues roots, is appropriate, Mayfield adds.
"Through the blues, you take the pain and suffering and turn it on its head, look at it, celebrate its passing through as a part of life, and move on," he says.
Christ Church Cathedral's bicentennial celebration plans at this time include:
November 16 at about 11:00 a.m.: The city's first big-band second line since Katrina, beginning at a location to be announced (probably at the Lafayette Cemetery #2) and proceeding to the Cathedral where there will be a liturgy of healing and renewal.
November 17, 8:00 a.m.: There will be a simple service of Morning Prayer in the Cabildo on Jackson Square, including a welcome and some brief remarks offered by Jenkins.
At 7:00 p.m.: The premier of All the Saints at the cathedral performed by the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra.
November 18 at 5:30 p.m.: Solemn Evensong with Canon John Peterson (former secretary general of the Anglican Communion and now Canon for Global Justice and Reconciliation at Washington National Cathedral) as preacher. This service will be followed by a reception and the opening of an exhibit of photographs of the Holy Land taken by the Very Rev. Tracy Lind, Dean of Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland and renowned photographer.
November 20 at 10:30 a.m.: Festival Eucharist at the cathedral, celebrated by Jenkins. Peterson will preach.