$20.00 DEALS.

 The link for this week's live-streamed service is here.

Thanks to our clerk of session for this week's blog post.

   Two quite different outings this week, both worth the $20.00 for each event.

The first one on Thursday with the ‘Out to Lunch Bunch’ when 13 of our congregation enjoyed lunch together at Zanzibar. We had a wonderful time of laughter, chatting and eating on a beautiful warm Spring Day.

You should join us next time & yes, my lunch and drink came in just under $20 00.

Then on Saturday, being International Organ Day, I caught the bus and went on an Organ Crawl with about 30 other people. It was arranged by the Royal Canadian College of Organists. Registration fee was $20.00! Proceeds were split between the RCCO Hart Memorial Scholarship Fund and the venues.

Both events were so enjoyable and worth every penny.

What an adventure this one was!

The morning was scheduled from 10:00am to 12:15pm, however, were didn’t finish until 1:00 pm.

Our host for the day was Mark MacDonald the Assistant Director of Music for the Cathedral. Mark is an internationally recognized performer, choral director, and teacher, based in Victoria and very knowledgeable regarding the 3 churches and their organs.

We met at the Church of our Lord, from there we walked to St. Ann’s Academy and finally up the hill to Christ Church Cathedral.

The Church of Our Lord, built in 1866-1870 and is located at 626 Blanshard Street in Victoria, it is an historic Carpenter Gothic church that is designated as a National Historic Site of Canada. A typical Anglican Church.

The oldest extant organ in B.C. stands in the chancel of this building where it has been since 1876 and came from America.

The organ, was purchased by Sir James Douglas and was transported to the brand-new Church of Our Lord and set up by John Bergstrom in 1875

Bishop Cridge, Emily Carr, Sir James Douglas and other such well known people have most likely sat in the pews and heard this organ.

Across the road at St Ann’s Academy, we found a very different venue.

It has a French-Canadian history.  The chapel, now deconsecrated but it is still used for weddings, was built in Roman Catholic French style, very ornate, lots of gold paint, very open and bright. The organ too is French and located in the loft at the rear of the church. The organ is by a French company started by Joseph Casavant of Montreal.

 

Finally, to the Cathedral which houses 5 organs that I counted, the largest being housed at the rear of the Cathedral up in the organ loft. This was an adventure in itself getting up there.

This one was built by Hellmuth Wolff a Canadian organ builder.

Mark played all of the 3 main organs at each church and here at the Cathedral he played, Holst’s, The Planets – Mars, as the grand finale.

Standing right by the organ console was an amazing experience and loud!

So that we could compare all of the organs, Mark played Judas Maccabeus by Handel (Thine be the Glory) @ each location.

There was so much more information that I could share, the background history of the churches and the organs in which they are housed but time and space is limited. If you are interested in more, just Google them.