Choral Evensong on the Eve of Labor Day

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church begins its 2026-2027 series of monthly services of Choral Evensong on Sunday, September 6, 2026 at 4:00 pm with a service commemorating Labor Day.

This traditional Anglican liturgy will feature the canticles Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis from Charles Villiers Stanford’s (1852-1924) Evening Service in G, with solos by Carrie Prewitt and David McCall, a new hymn-tune setting of the ancient Greek prayer for light, the Phos hilaron, Preces and Responses (The Tryon Service) by Richard Shephard (1949-2021), and the premiere of a new anthem, He hath made everything beautiful in his time by Jeffrey Hoffman, St. Luke’s director of music.

Often compared to Franz Schubert’s art song Gretchen am Spinradde (Gretchen at the spinning wheel), the Magnificat from Stanford's Evening Service in G evokes the image of Mary working a spinning wheel as she sings her Magnificat, sung by a solo soprano against a choral and organ (or orchestral) accompaniment. The beautiful Nunc dimittis similarly features a baritone singing the words of St. Simeon at the end of his life “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace" with echoes from the full choir.

Richard Shephard was one of the most prolific and beloved of English church music composers in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. His Tryon Service was composed for his friend the late professor Richard Schweizer, whose St. James Press is based in Tryon, North Carolina.

He hath made everything beautiful in his time is a new anthem based on the text of Ecclesiastes 3 which discusses the purpose and rewards of human labor.

A synthesis of several of the evening and night time offices of the medieval monastic liturgies of the hours made practical for lay observance, Choral Evensong is perhaps the most recognizable of all Anglican liturgies, having been sung continuously in England and throughout the English-speaking world since the English Reformation, inspiring countless composers to set its canticles to music. St. Luke’s Episcopal Church offers Choral Evensong on a monthly basis (excepting our All Souls’ Observance with a full choral Requiem in November, and Lessons and Carols for Advent in December).