On February 21 and 22, Nancy Nash, of Haines, came to St. Peter's, Sitka, to instruct the Leadership Program for Musicians Serving Small Congregations course. Nancy is a musician, music teacher, and director of music at St. Michael's and All Angels in Haines.
Nancy attended the Virginia Theological Seminary Summer Program two years ago to receive instruction in teaching this course. The program was provided by the Standing Commission on Church Music and can lead to the "Presiding Bishop's Diploma in Church Music."

Approximately 14 people attended the weekend course, including choir members, organists and clergy. The entire program consists of six courses:

1) Leadership and Accompaniment of Congregational Song, 2) The Hymnody of the Christian Church with special reference to the 1982 Hymnal, 3) Essentials of Good Liturgy, 4) Principles of Music Leadership and Voice Training for Choirs, 5) Teaching New Music to the Congregation, and 6) Resources for an Effective Music Ministry.

Each course further consists of 10 sessions. During the weekend, Nancy covered five sessions from four of the above courses. We learned that hymns are picked from a theme surrounding the lessons of the day. Saturday's session started with Morning Prayer, including a chanted Psalm, two sung canticles and the Jubilate.

Hymns should tell a story and the author's words and composers of the music are listed at the end of each hymn. For this information, we see that the 1982 Hymnal contains hymn sources from ancient to contemporary times.

Saturday evening was a congregational "hymn-sing" with requests for favorite hymns. This was followed by the very beautiful and moving service of a sung Compline.

Sessions continued Sunday afternoon with discussion of the meaning of Liturgy and the elements of Liturgy which are Order (or Sequence), Ritual, and Ceremony--which includes music.

Two sessions were held exclusively for the organists to discuss the organ, its use, and accompaniment. Nancy left several resource books for us to read and an assignment was given for those wishing to pursue the course for the Presiding Bishop's Diploma.

The course, however, is open to anyone who is interested in just sitting in to audit it. A return visit for further lessons is planned in June.

St Peter's is the first Alaskan Episcopal Church to begin this training and highly recommends it!