(Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)

Sunday's music: The music and text of our anthem, "I Have Touched the Face of God," were composed by Noel Goemanne (1926 -2010), who was born in Poperinge, Belgium. He was named in honor of Christmas, and during his long career as a composer of sacred music wrote many choral and organ pieces to celebrate that season. Outspoken

	Noel Goemanne

about the importance of music from his earliest years, he was arrested during World War II for publicly playing the music of the Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn during the Nazi occupation. In 1952, newly married and realizing that Europe had an overabundance of organists, he and his wife, Janine, immigrated to the United States, where he took the position of church organist at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Victoria, Texas. When the liturgical rites of the Catholic Church changed in the early 1960s, he was quick to adapt, while adhering to classical good taste. He composed the first Masses in English approved by Vatican II for use in the Church. During the 1960s he traveled to college campuses, giving workshops on sacred music. He established the sacred music program at St. Joseph College in Rensselaer, Indiana, for which he was awarded an honorary doctorate. Goemanne held organist and choirmaster positions in Detroit, Michigan; at Holy Trinity Seminary in Dallas; and, finally, at Christ the King Catholic Church in Dallas from 1972 until his death. One day in Dallas, one of his choir members casually remarked that the Pachelbel Canon had been arranged for every instrument but voice and suggested he write a version for singers. He did, and his arrangement was used in several scenes in the 1980 Academy Award -winning movie Ordinary People. During his long composing career, Goemanne received the Pro Ecclesia medal from the Vatican in 1977; the award from the Institute of Sacred Music, Manila, Philippines, in 1974; and numerous ASCAP awards.

Sunday's music participants: Pat Flannagan, Bob Greene, Women of the Sanctuary Choir.

Organist's footnotes: Dr. Charles Gordon Phillips (1908 -1991) was Professor of Pipe Organ at the London College of Music and one of the most influential teachers of the mid-twentieth century. Dr. Phillips drew many organists' attention to early English organ music through the Tallis to Wesley series, which he instigated and edited. He was the first to lead players back to what the composers had actually written, and away from the heavily edited and filled-in arrangements that had draped early music in a late nineteenth-century mantle. As an organ composer, he has been largely forgotten, apart from the Six Carol Preludes and the "Meditation" from the Three Pastoral Pieces.

Dr. Charles Gordon Phillips

From 1957 until his death in 1991, Dr. Phillips gave twice-weekly recitals at All Hallows by the Tower of London. I attended one of these recitals in the summer of 1988. Afterwards, I was introduced to Dr. Phillips, and I complimented him on his own composition ( Three Pastoral Pieces) that he had played and inquired where one could purchase a copy. He quickly retorted, "You can't! It's out of print. But if you like, I'll ask the secretary to make photocopies for you." And thus I acquired the suite of pieces you will hear Sunday.

The Three Pastoral Pieces were composed separately in October 1936 and November and February 1937. They were published as a set by Oxford University Press later in 1937. The pieces go well played as a set, as the cumulative effect is that of progress from the known towards the modern. Each piece has a dedication to a contemporary organist, each of whom was a recitalist at that time: Reginald Jevons, W. S. Lloyd Webber (father of Andrew Lloyd Webber), and Harold Fairburn. "Meditation" (prelude) begins by toying with the ideas arising from the first four notes, first upwards then downwards; the possibilities for modulation are explored and, in the process, the melodic fragment gets modified. When we return to recapitulate the opening, it is as if after much thought: first ideas are best. The "Scherzo" (offertory) is a lively piece whose chromatic decoration conveys a feeling of restlessness until we reach the middle section, which is in the major key. The tonal stability is short lived, and after more chromaticism and an accelerando that ends with a very short pedal solo, the opening is recapitulated, now sounding quite familiar after the middle section. The piece ends with a little coda, a kind of afterthought. "Pastoral Sketch" (postlude): A calm opening is rudely interrupted by five discordant notes on the clarinet. Calm is restored and, after a melodic solo, the clarinet enters as if it now knows which notes to play. A tonic pedal prepares us for the final cadence. A rough rustic interpretation of the pastoral scene.

Church Officers
ELDERS
Class of 2018	Class of 2019	Class of 2020
Aaron Brooks	Anna Booher	Nancy Allerton
Randy Cook	Lee Galliher	Rebecca Beck
Debbie McMillin	Pete Holler	David Hyde
Stuart Parker	Han Ong	Jordan Pennington
Chuck Thompson	Pete Stigers	Jerry Poteat
DEACONS
Class of 2018	Class of 2019	Class of 2020
Adam Abel	Sujean Bradley	Blake Bassett
Nancy Butterworth	George Linke	Rhonda Comer
David Ginn	Greg Roberts	Brenda Lawson
Rett Stocstill	Nate Sproles	Barbara Thompson
Ann Woods	Bill Whisnant
TRUSTEES
Class of 2018	Class of 2019	Class of 2020
Charles Webb	Nancy Cook	Peggy Hill