Faith news (Including Celebrity Organ Recital)

Nativity crib festival at Holy Trinity, Leverstock

Holy Trinity Church, Leverstock Green is holding another nativity crib festival this year after the great success of last year when it had over 600 visitors. This year’s which will be the on December 5, 6 and 7.

Celebrity Organ Recital at St Albans Cathedral

Margaret Phillips is one of Britain’s outstanding concert organists and teachers and she is on her way to St Albans Cathedral for the International Organ Festival later this month.

She made her début at the Royal Festival Hall in 1972 and soon gained an international reputation as a soloist, playing at concert halls and cathedrals throughout Europe and in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and Mexico.

Recent performance highlights have included concerts in cathedrals throughout Scandinavia as well as 
celebrity recitals in Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral, and also King’s and St John’s Colleges in Cambridge.

Since 1996 she has been Professor of Organ at the Royal College of Music in London, and she is also much in demand throughout the UK and abroad as teacher, masterclass tutor and international jury member.

Her numerous CDs, which include the complete organ works of Bach, Mendelssohn and Saint-Saëns have received critical acclaim.

In 1994, Margaret Phillips and her husband founded the English Organ School and Museum in former chapel premises in Milborne Port, Somerset, where they have a small collection of organs by English organ builders from the 18th century to the present day.

As her recital is on the eve of Advent Sunday, Margaret Phillips will frame her programme with contrasting settings of two Advent hymns, from the 17th century there is De adventu Domini by Samuel Scheidt.

Then from the 20th century, Anton Heiller’s Variations on Luther’s German version of the same hymn and to end the recital are two versions of Luther’s Nun freut euch tor gentium, one by Matthias Weckmann and one by Lionel Rogg.

Margaret Phillips also plays an exciting Toccata and Fugue by Edwin Lemare, a trio of dances in an almost jazzy style by the Swedish composer Håkan Sundin, and the ever-popular Miroir by the Dutch composer Ad Wammes.

Entry to the recital is free with a retiring collection in aid of the International Organ Festival Society.

After the recital the audience will have the opportunity to meet the soloist at a reception in the Cathedral Refectory.

Margaret Phillips: Celebrity Organ Recital will take place on Saturday November 29 at 5.30pm in St Albans Cathedral.

Full details of all the Concerts in the 2014-2015 Recital Series can be found at: www.organfestival.com

CHRISTIAN VIEWPOINT OF THE WEEK

Since we’re only human, we all make mistakes. For this reason, God wants us to forgive one another. It can feel like, when you forgive someone, you’re letting them get away with what they’ve done but, on the contrary, you can find freedom from hurt or pain in doing this. If you are struggling to forgive someone, you can start by making a conscious decision about it. God sees the heart’s true intentions and he loves it when we seek to do the right thing. If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.

Charis Dussek, 
Year 11,
The Hemel Hempstead School,
South Hill Church