OSP People: Letter from Abroad – Gabriel Simerson

Greetings from the glorious area of Virginia known as the Piedmont: a land of rolling valleys, thriving vineyards, and stately homes framed by mountain ridges (once upon a time the same range as the Scottish Highlands), as well as a rich landscape of practical and intellectual resources thanks to the proximity of the University of Virginia in nearby Charlottesville, where founding father “Mr. Jefferson’s” legacy remains. I have the distinct privilege of living in this area and doing what I love, which is being an Episcopal music director. But the plan didn’t start out this way, and my time in Edinburgh was a part of the journey.

When I arrived at Old Saint Paul’s in 2018 as a college student abroad, I was a political science major, convinced I was going to be a radio journalist. My mother is a professional violinist and had counselled me, as she’d counselled many of her students, not to pursue a career in music (I’d have told myself the same thing based on my musical work ethic at the time). But by the time I got to Edinburgh, I’d been exposed to a new kind of musicmaking: Anglo-Catholic church music. My exposure to this craft and this faith had been sparked in Washington, DC (where I went to college) at St. Paul’s, K Street, the local flagship spikey parish. So when I got to OSP, my interest had been primed.

My first friend in Scotland was John Kitchen and the rest is history; it was only three months that I spent in Edinburgh, but my time integrated into the OSP choir and into Edinburgh music was enough to transform my outlook. By the time I got back to the States, I was working with university administrators to add a music degree, and I knew these smoky rooms were where my vocation was meant to be formed.

The thing about Anglo-Catholic churches, as you all well know, is that there aren’t that many of them, and so one of the most valuable skills I was to develop as a church musician was not necessarily the accompaniment of plainsong or improvisation during a Benediction or a fluency in Latin, but rather the capacity to adapt my liturgical tastes–extreme to most Anglicans–to the needs found in the majority of parishes; in other words, to distill down the principles I’d come to value and the lessons I’d learned in shrine parishes to ideas I could apply to any church music program.

So what are those, and how did OSP help me figure this all out?

Music as a Handmaid to the Liturgy–Liturgy as an Organism

A high mass is like the inside of a watch; each individual component moves in tandem with the others, supporting and being supported by the others. An offertory hymn moves along as a the thurible is passed down through the ranks at the altar and moves toward the nave; the Benediction hymns accompany the physical demonstrations of praise to the monstrance; the whole assembly makes a figurative pilgrimage during congregational processions as the music rolls along to drive them. The Magnificat at evensong is not a performance of a Magnficat–it IS the Magnificat!

The Power of Anonymity in Church

One of my most valued OSP experiences was Lucernarium, that magical time when darkness is comfortable and one doesn’t necessarily know who else is in the room–nor does it matter. I felt the power of being anonymous on those winter Sunday nights, and that some people came to this service because they could simply exist without being observed.

The Allure of the Mystical–and its Function

People live, by definition, mundane daily lives, and many of them need some sort of sensual aid to help them shift into a mode of prayer. For many, this is music, light, and ritual.

The Capacity of Volunteer Excellence

The vast majority of the OSP choir is volunteer singers, and yet they sing much more repertoire (and, one could argue, with greater liturgical sensitivity) than many fully-professional choirs. The standard for financial investment in church music is very different in the US than in the UK, and in some parish contexts you’ll find a belief that excellence is directly related to cost of professional help. At OSP, it was con formed for me that this is not true, and that anyone is capable of excellence–and that they may enjoy being challenged more than one might expect.

The Organist’s Power to Inspire Congregational Singing

I must confess that many Americans hold a broad stereotype of British hymn- and service-playing as dry and by-the-book. What a nice surprise to arrive in Scotland and meet John and Calum! This is a concept I had already been introduced to in DC and elsewhere, but the enthusiasm and fondness for truly having fun when singing hymns at OSP drove this point home for me.

Opportunity and context would have it that after the pandemic I began serving “broad” churches as music director: these are places where the standard ritual is reliably found (chasubles, basic reverence around the altar, entrance and exit processions, sung psalms), but true “ritualism” is unfamiliar and is not really why most people come to church, many of them recent arrivals to Anglicanism. So how was I to apply the ideals that solidi ed in me in Edinburgh to these “normal” churches?

Well, let’s fast-forward to where I am today: music director at St. Paul’s Church in Ivy, a leafy village about six miles west of Charlottesville. The Diocese of Virginia has historically leaned low church, and Charlottesville churches are no exception, though St. Paul’s, with its weekly chasubles and “big six” candles at the recedos sits decidedly at the high end of the local candle. Once a sleepy “country club church,” the last 10 or 20 years have seen the parish gradually transform into a destination for young

families and local transplants, many of them new Episcopalians, to find a family home. The choir is 10 to 12 people, most of them volunteers of varied ages and backgrounds. There are lots of children looking for something to do. Very few people are thinking of churchmanship.

One might think that this context is no place for me to impose visions of thuribles and humeral veils and Benediction and choral masses–and one would be right. But the lessons I learned at OSP are still applicable. Music is still a handmaid to the liturgy; every note one plays in a communion improvisation, every hymn one plans, takes its cue from the lectionary and the day’s affekt. Anonymity, and focus on the altar, still means something to people, as can its natural marriage with the allure of the mystical. People of all churchmanships are drawn to, say, a low-light evensong with a glowing peace that they can’t find at any other time of the week. Very crucially, volunteer excellence applies everywhere. I treat our majority- volunteer choir like professionals, because anyone given the opportunity to lean into a challenge will emerge achieving excellence–and this applies to children too. Congregational singing as inspired from the organ is also universally applicable – and I immediately try to begin this mission wherever I play.

Recent successes here in Ivy have been directly attributable to my experience at OSP. We reintroduced evensong after five years this past December, incorporating the lucernarium liturgy (and even using the same “light and peace” chant as OSP) and continuing the quest to light a fire under congregational song. We ran out of service sheets and the singing made the room vibrate–and they want more! And the choir found they could, indeed, put together Howells Coll Reg and responses and an anthem and more in their regular rehearsal time.

All this is to say that, despite my only momentarily passing through Edinburgh as a student, I wouldn’t be where I am now – indeed, I likely wouldn’t be spending my life doing what I love – if I hadn’t met OSP and its people. As they say in Dixie, y’all come visit, and you’ll find that the beauty of holiness is for everyone and everywhere. You all taught me that.

Gabe Simerson