It is hard to believe that it’s only three months since my pre­vi­ous ‘Happy Christ­mas’ post – there has been so much change packed into that time. Although there are far few­er extern­al events asso­ci­ated with the run-up to East­er than Christ­mas (see my pre­vi­ous post), I find myself, as I write this, approach­ing the final pre­par­a­tions for the ser­vices of Holy Week and East­er in much the same way as we were approach­ing Christ­mas in my pre­vi­ous news posting. 

One of the main dif­fer­ences now is that I am approach­ing this new church sea­son in a brand new job. Hav­ing star­ted my new post as Dir­ect­or of Music at All Saints’ church, Stam­ford in late Janu­ary, the choir of All Saints’ and I have been get­ting to know each oth­er over the past few months. We have already – even over the sombre church sea­son of Lent – enjoyed some won­der­ful music mak­ing togeth­er, both at the reg­u­lar Sunday Euchar­ists, at the spe­cial ser­vice for Ash Wed­nes­day and at our first even­song togeth­er. I am delighted to say that, as we approach the most import­ant week in the church year, we are pre­par­ing for a full set of chor­al ser­vices through the Tri­du­um up to the cel­eb­ra­tions on East­er Sunday.

We are look­ing for­ward to con­trib­ut­ing our music to the liturgy on Maun­dy Thursday even­ing (7:30pm), at the Good Fri­day liturgy of the cross (2pm), for the East­er Vigil on Sat­urday even­ing (7:30pm), and at the Fest­al Euchar­ist on East­er Sunday (10am). If you are in the Stam­ford area, come and join us!

Wish­ing all a very Happy East­er 2024,

Bene­dict